After a relatively mild summer in Paso Robles, the harvest season is rounding into full swing as we head into the last weeks of September. Here’s the 411 so far on what we’re seeing as Vintage 2025 gets underway.
Harvest Timing
By mid September, all of our eastside Zinfandel and Malbec fruit from the Estrella District was “in the barn.” By September 18, we were picking Malbec, Merlot and Viognier from our westside To the Moon Vineyard, and there will be much more to come in October. These timeframes correspond to a “normal” harvest timeline in Paso Robles. Typically, you might expect a mild summer to push the pick dates back further, but lower tonnages this year meant that these lighter yields ripened more quickly, so everything is meeting in the middle. We shall see what the next month holds—heat spikes could quicken the pace, while cool weather might slow things down.Wine Quality
It sounds like we’ve got a stunning vintage on our hands, similar in ways to the 2023 vintage, when mild conditions also prevailed. But this one might have the edge. Consider that the color on our Willow Creek District Malbec is on pace to deliver our highest ever anthocyanin (the pigment in red grapes) level. Since color is a positive indicator of flavor and mouthfeel, you can see why we’re bullish about this vintage. “As a winemaker, seeing something like this gets me very excited,” says Winemaker James Schreiner. “It’s everything we could want from our early picks.”The Cool Stuff
James and Assistant Winemaker Skye Bruce always use the harvest season to indulge their curiosity and thirst for experimentation. After all, they only get one chance a year to play around with fermentations. For example, Skye is running a trial on our Tempranillo with a new “non-Saccharomyces yeast” designed for the “BIOAcidification and fermentation of wines.” Since Saccharomyces yeasts are the standard in winemaking, this is an experimental departure for Opolo. Tempranillo has a naturally low pH, so by fermenting 10 percent of the wine with this new yeast, Skye is creating vibrantly acidic blending component. We expect this trial lot to enliven and elevate our final Tempranillo blend from 2025. This year, James and Skye are also applying partial stem inclusion to our first-ever pick from a new Syrah block at our Quinn West estate in the Willow Creek District, which will imbue the wine with spicy complexity. That’s it for now—stay tuned for future vintage reports.
