The 2018 harvest is still more than a month away here at Dyer Vineyard on Diamond Mountain.  Even as we finish the green drop and color thinning the St Helena Star and the Napa Valley Register have begun to publish their weekly reports from all 13 AVAs and I’m the designated representative for Diamond Mountain, something I’ve done for many years now.  I looked back on the reports from the last few years and all together they paint a good picture of a vintage.   Here are the first 2 weeks from Diamond Mountain. If you’d like to follow this year’s harvest in all 13 of Napa Valley’s AVAs, here’s a link to the first report and to the second… you get the idea.

Meanwhile, on Diamond Mountain, here’s a progress report!

8/20/18

Veraison is underway in all but the latest vineyards on Diamond Mountain and even finished in some. After the warm, dry weather early in the year- a cool, wet March/April pushed the timing of bloom back to “normal” and provided adequate moisture for good canopy growth well into the growing season.  It’s been a relatively warm summer but so far we have avoided the extreme heat that punctuated the 2017 growing season and August is expected to finish with temperatures slightly below average.  General agreement is that the Cabernet harvest is on track to start late Sept/ early October.

8/27/18

As August draws to a close the start date for harvest on Diamond Mountain is still being counted in weeks not days.  Even von Strasser’s Gruner Veltliner is only 17.8B and most winemakers won’t even start sampling until after Labor Day.  The cooler weather in the last week of August has been called everything from blissfully normal to perfect.  Whatever you call it, it’s been great for the vineyards on Diamond Mountain, extending the season and building desirable flavors and tannins …so far so good.