the vines maintained small clusters without much increase in berry weight. Cluster weights at harvest were the lowest on record—many vineyard blocks averaging 30 percent less than normal. In order to protect the fruit, leafing of the canopy was delayed so that the additional shade would cool the fruit. Irrigation can partly help a vine to weather the swelter, but once temperatures exceed 95 degrees, the grapevine’s respiration shuts down to reduce water loss, and the vine can only recover the following morning under cooler weather when the roots can draw water from the soil. We monitored irrigation cycles closely with weather stations, soil and vine sensors and good, ol’ fashioned boots on the ground.


These swings in temperature continued into July, just as veraison—the onset of ripening, when red grapes change from green to purplish-red and sugars begin to rise—was underway in the vineyards. (Veraison began the third week of July—a few weeks later than in recent years.) During veraison, temperatures are critical to achieving cluster maturity. Too much heat, and the vine will abort the fruit. Sunburn was also a concern, particularly for chardonnay due to its fragile skins. There’s no SPF 50 to prevent the grapes from getting too much of a tan. Having the right trellis for the grapes was key—too much shading of fruit, and the varietals express less maturity; too little and the varietals express less flavor concentration due to sunburn of the skins. Fortunately, August days were mostly cool with ideal foggy mornings, and night temperatures dipped into the mid-50s.


The 2017 Sonoma County grape harvest kicked off at Jordan Winery on August 30 with Russian River Valley chardonnay, and then Mother Nature smacked California’s North Coast with another record heat wave over Labor Day weekend. Hotels in San Francisco were at capacity with residents seeking air-conditioned rooms. I can’t remember a hotter weekend in September, and I’ve lived in Northern California my entire life.


Although Healdsburg did not break its record of 116 degrees, set in 1972 (the year Jordan Winery was founded)— temperatures hovered at 108-114 degrees in Alexander Valley.


The vines were simply just trying to survive by keeping water loss to a minimum. Sugars climbed in the fruit, but this was only due to dehydration. Irrigation was plentiful but only useful when the temperatures dropped at night so the vines


Manuel Lemus, who has worked in the Jordan vineyards for 37 years, removes damaged petit verdot clusters after the Labor Day weekend heat wave.


could pull water back into its clusters. Within a few days, sugar levels returned to pre-heat levels as clusters had time to rehydrate.


The most significant impact the heat wave had on the Jordan Chardonnay grapes was quantity—the clusters were small, about 25 percent below normal weight—attributable to the heat wave in mid-June when the berries were forming. Additional clusters were lost when the stressed vines aborted some of the fruit during the Labor Day heat wave. Juice yields were about 10 percent off normal, but more importantly, the flavors were clean, showing no ill effects of sunburn— bright aromas and crisp flavors of apple, pear and peach.


In the Alexander Valley where our Bordeaux grape varieties are grown, including cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit verdot, malbec and cabernet franc, we also irrigated our estate vineyard blocks to keep the grapevines hydrated and asked our grape growers to do the same. This minimized the possibility of the grapes shriveling. Due to our decision not to leaf the red grapes, the afternoon shade cover kept sunburn of Bordeaux varieties to a minimum. The exception was our estate petit verdot, and a couple other blocks that are more vulnerable to heat stress because of shallow soils. These blocks required the fruit to be removed by hand, known as “thinning.” Not one block came in with an excess of fruit. Most blocks averaged 10-30 percent lower than a normal year.


Once fruit began arriving at the winery and tanks were pressed, we evaluated each lot after malolactic fermentation. The consensus of the 2017 vintage?


Rob Davis has been winemaker at Jordan since the inaugural 1976 vintage. 9


Amazement! Our winemaking team was truly impressed with how opulent the wine lots showed—like holding a black cherry in the strong palm of a veteran farmer. This was not what we expected. We looked at each other, shook our heads, smiled and said, “This is crazy good!”


As the last truck of grapes arrived at the crush pad on October 7, our team of seasoned cellar workers and interns cheered in celebration. We all agreed to greet our families with some well deserved rest the following Sunday. But instead of being awakened in the middle of the night by grape gondolas rattling down roads, we were roused out of bed by first responders fighting pockets of wildfires throughout Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties. Because all of our grapes were harvested and fermenting in stainless steel tanks before the firestorm began, the 2017 Jordan wines were not impacted by the wildfires. Fortunately, 90 percent of the harvest throughout the North Coast was completed.


2017 is a hallmark of nature’s ability to display its many faceted moods. It’s also a testament to the resilience and hardiness of grapevines during extreme weather and to the determination and skill of winemaker and winegrower working together to make the best out of a difficult situation. And for the wines to demonstrate such intensity and strength is just another example of how each year—each vintage is truly sui generis—unique in its own way. But ask any vintner about 2017, and mark my words, he or she will say, (hopefully in a polite way): “2017??! Crazy!” And in four more years when you taste the wine, we hope you will say, “Ah, 2017. This is crazy good!”


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