Texas Vineyard Happenings
Wineries in the Northern Hemisphere are working 24 hours a day for the seven days of each week. It is grape harvest time, especially in Texas! Vineyards have seen great weather leading into harvest in Texas. The grapes are reaching perfection under miles of bird netting. Those birds are smart and know when to snack on these ultra-sweet grapes. The Thompson seedless grapes in the grocery store are about a third of sweetness found in those wine grapes. The “store grapes” normally have 8 to 9% sugars while the wine grapes have between 25 to 30 % sugars. That is a lot of sweetness!
This year’s harvest has had its fair share of highs and lows. The Monday after Easter brought unexpected freezing temperatures to the Texas Hill Country, which damaged some of the fruit. The intense rains in July, when much of the fruit was going through verasion, rushed harvest for some to prevent berry splitting/swelling that can dilute flavors and ‘shatter’ where grape clusters fail to fully develop. End-of-July dry and warm temperatures helped offset the rain, resulting in harvesting good quality, but often smaller volumes of grapes.
The Texas High Plains and West Texas vineyards are looking great, with harvest well underway for white grapes and expectations for delivering high-quality fruit.
Heath Family Brands in the Texas Hill County is bringing in tons of grapes. “Over the last two weeks we have processed 140 tons of fruit from the Texas High Plains and 14 tons from Grape Creek Vineyards. Varietals from the High Plains include Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Malbec (rosé), Syrah (rosé), Cabernet Sauvignon (rosé), Merlot and Tempranillo. Grape Creek Vineyards estate harvest includes Petite Sirah, Tannat, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Merlot. That brings our 2025 harvest total to date to 262 tons of Texas fruit, with a lot more to come. The Heath Family Brands winery team is putting in a lot of hard work as harvest hits its stride and they are CRUSHing it,” says Brian Heath, founder of Heath Family Brands.
Thys Smit, Winemaker from Pedernales Cellars reports, “Our estate vineyard was impacted by late frost and significant rain just before harvest, leading us to drop more fruit than we would have liked. As such, quantities from the estate vineyard have been lower, but quality is good, especially Teroldego. Mourvèdre required detailed sorting to work through some “raisin-ing,” but the quality looks great there as well. We brought in Tempranillo from Dell Valley.The numbers reflect a slightly cooler growing season with incredible acid levels to accompany great phenolic maturity. We are very excited for this wine. Syrah and Petite Sirah from Desert Willow have arrived. This organic fruit was held to extremely low yields with impressive quality. The phenolics on the Syrah are out of this world, and it is showing an inky purple mid-ferment. Upcoming picks include organic Grenache and Mourvèdre from Desert Willow, followed by the remaining fruit for the signature programs at Pedernales – Viognier and Tempranillo. Viognier looks to be headed this way by end of August. Quality from these growers has been consistently high.”
Meanwhile at Spicewood Vineyards, Ron Yates, Owner told me, “The estate harvest was delayed several weeks due to the Hill Country rains, with a lower-than-hoped volume of Sauvignon Blanc, Touriga Nacional, Carignan, Grenache, Tempranillo and Merlot due to the Easter Monday freeze. The Texas High Plains fruit from Friesen Vineyards is looking fantastic – we are expecting one of our best harvests there. Same with the Dell Valley Vineyards fruit in West Texas – we have picked Semillon, Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc. This is our first Chenin Blanc from Dell Valley; it has really great aromatics and flavors. We picked it a little earlier to hold on to the acids since it is destined to be a sparkling wine.”
Dave Reilly is the Winemaker at Duchman Family Winery which makes several outstanding Italian-style wines. He said, “Harvest is running about two weeks earlier than usual this year on the Texas High Plains. We’re starting with Tempranillo from Bingham Family Vineyards, followed by our signature Vermentino in early September, then Montepulciano and Aglianico from Oswald Vineyard in early October. We’re particularly excited about this year’s Tempranillo harvest. While we don’t produce this variety every vintage, our 2023 Tempranillo was exceptionally well-received by customers, so we’re thrilled to craft it again with the 2025 fruit showing such promise.”
Dr. Bob Young is a retired medical Doctor and is Co-Owner and Executive Winemaker at Bending Branch Winery. He is a Texas pioneer in “flash détente” fruit extraction, particularly used in his Tannat wines. He was excited to say, “The quality of fruit we are getting from the Texas Hill Country is above average this year. The Tannat from our estate Camledge Vineyard looks outstanding. We also received some beautiful Malbec from Ranch Rose Vineyard outside of Comfort. We anticipate receiving Tannat, Petite Sirah, and Charbono from Tallent Vineyards over the next few weeks. From the Texas High Plains, we recently received certified organic Cabernet Sauvignon from Y Knot Vineyards that will make a lively sparkling rosé. The clusters were clean and beautiful. We look forward to receiving more fruit from Y Knot Vineyards for red wines. We look forward to more certified organic fruit from Desert Willow Vineyards, too. We’re anticipating high-quality harvests from Newsom Vineyards, Friesen Vineyards and others. Some of the ripening has stalled out with recent rains in the High Plains, but we don’t mind the lull in fruit arrivals as there are plenty of wines in progress with fermentations and wines ready to press out and barrel down.”
The grape harvest in Texas appears to be headed for greatness with more Gold and Double Gold Medals along with Best in Show being earned by Texas grown grapes made into outstanding Texas wines!