One topic that regularly comes up in the wine industry is that of yield in the vineyard. Personally, I like to just talk about this concept in terms of tons/acre of grapes. But in truth, there are lots of different ways this concept is discussed on a regular basis depending what knowledge someone already has, like asking:

• How many cases of wine does this block make?
• How many bottles of wine does this vine make?
• How many tons do you get off this vineyard?
• How many pounds of grapes does a vine make?
• Etc, etc, etc

What this all amounts to is a sometimes-long-winded unit conversion problem like the ones we all used to do in grade school. You just need to know what all those conversions are:

• 2,000 lbs/ton
• 2.206 lbs/kg
• 135-150 gallons/ton post press
• 52-55 cases per ton
• 24-25 cases per barrel (for a 225-228L barrel)
• 3.785 L/gal
• 2.5 acres/hectare
• And of course you need a chart of all the different vine/acre #’s given different vine spacings one could plant at

So once you have a yield number in tons per acre, or tonnes per hectare, or kg/ourvre, what does it mean? What do you do with that? This is where its always important to separate emotion from logic. As humans, we always have a tendency to simplify things down to emotionally appealing ideas that aren’t necessarily true. One of those I’ve regularly seen around wine is the idea that there is an inverse linear relationship between yield and quality. Ie, if the yield is cut in half, the grapes must be twice as good. At best, one could say this is an unproveable statement. At worst, one could argue that idea is utter nonsense. Personally, I think the best thing one can do is track their observations over time. To that end, I can say I’ve seen:

• Large vineyards on the fertile Napa Valley floor (deep, rich, volcanic topsoil) where years of blind tastings continued to conclude a particularly fertile block that could regularly produce 6-8 tons per acre produced the best wine on the property (this block had extremely deep, volcanic topsoil that allowed it to support large canopies and yields)
• Estates where yields over 4 tons per acre demonstrated marked impacts on pH and TA at harvest
• Blocks where yields never seemed to impact harvest date
• Blocks where yields significantly impacted harvest date
• And that’s not even getting into the mountain of data that people have been compiling on phenolics over the last five years, which could be its own discussion someday

To me, tracking historical data for every block you work with allows you to make the most informed decisions as to how it will act in the future. This accounts for the many differences that exist between blocks, vineyards, and grape growing regions. Different soil compositions, drainage, canopy density, soil fertility, farming techniques, desired wine style, weather and climactic conditions all are going to impact the chemistry and composition of the final grapes that are harvested, making it extremely difficult to control all variables in the process.

One other important number to consider is on the cost input side… your cost of farming! If the cost of farming is higher than the value of the crop you get, you have an obvious business issue. However, value is a relative thing. Many large wine businesses might have their vineyard set up as a separate entity and choose a price to sell the fruit from one to the other. Most small businesses are a single entity, and therefore, the cost of growing the grapes becomes their value, often making them cheaper than purchased grapes since there isn’t a profit margin built in.

So where does that leave us? Does LXV adjust its crop? The short answer is yes, when we feel we need to. As Armaa.N, as well as some of the other young plantings we control, have come online and matured, the yields have been quite low overall, ranging anywhere from 1 ton per acre to a max of 3 tons per acre. However, last year, our yields of Syrah and Sangiovese started to creep a little higher and we observed that it was having a significant impact on the timing of our harvests of those varieties. Given that Armaa.N estate lies in one of, if not the, coldest pockets in the Willow Creek District, we decided that we did not want to run the risk of pushing harvest into November and increasing our risk of frost events. Therefore, we chose to drop both blocks to a single cluster per shoot this year. We believe that action will generate incredible flavor and phenolics from the grapes as well as ensure a safe and reasonable ripening period. By doing the drop early, we have also prevented the vines from spending more energy than necessary on those clusters, reserving it for canopy growth and the health of the remaining clusters instead. And we’re incredibly excited to measure the results this year and test if our hypotheses were correct!

Cheers until next time!

-jeff