the pourcast
Roots, Ripeness and a l’il rain. 2025 Harvest recap by Winemaker, Lauren O’Brien.
Mt. Hood
The 2025 harvest is a wrap! Although the last picks are still finishing fermentation, the young wines are off to a good start, showing good concentration, balance, and lovely flavors. A snapshot of a year’s worth of care in the vineyard, which we will follow with a year of care in the cellar.
This year, bud break happened in mid-April as it often does, but flowering and veraison were both a little early, so we thought harvest would come about a week earlier than last year. Leading up to veraison, Bob had the vineyard crew remove leaves so the clusters would get plenty of sun and wind, and drop fruit to just one cluster per shoot to ensure quality. We got a little rain each month this summer and no crazy heat domes, so the vines were happy. Veraison was just finishing up as we bottled the 2024s. We then started closely monitoring ripening…
When the upper portion of our Homestead block reached perfect ripeness for Rosé and Corduroy, we called the first pick — September 6th, a full two weeks earlier than last year. We spent the next five weeks sampling, sorting, and crushing about 70 tons of grapes; carefully deciding when to pick each block, tending fermentations, and of course, cleaning. As a small boutique winery, we do everything by hand. It’s more work, but it means we can pay closer attention to the needs and charms of each lot of grapes and each ferment.
In the Burgundian tradition, we allow ambient (native) yeast to ferment our reds. We then press and barrel down each small fermenter separately. In each barrel, native bacteria carry out malolactic fermentation. We also follow the traditional “brown juice” approach to Chardonnay — no SO₂ added at crush, letting the juice oxidize so the resulting wine will be safer from it later. We ferment our Chardonnay in a mix of puncheons and barrels, making a decision on the amount of MLF to allow for each one individually.
Our Cellar.
Now our cellar is full of hundreds of barrels (plus a few tanks), each with its own unique character. Over the coming year, we will let the wine rest on its lees, tending to it as it evolves… until next summer, when we’ll make our blending decisions.
2025 was our first harvest from the new Gamay vines in the Gorge Crest vineyard we farm on Underwood Mountain — exciting! The vines are still very small, so they could only support a small crop. We fermented it, with a little stem inclusion, in two older barrels with the heads removed. The Gamay has a distinct peppery spice, with nice red fruit and bright acidity. Blended with a little Pinot Noir, we’ll bottle it as a special “Passetoutgorge Rouge” next year — keep your eyes out!
Soon, as fall turns to winter, we’ll take advantage of the cold weather to stabilize our whites (no electricity needed). During the winter we’ll prepare the first of the 2025 wines for bottling our spring and early summer releases like our Rosé, Le Petit, Riesling, and Gewürztraminer.
Harvest is a huge team effort, and there are many thanks to go around. Clay came on as a cellar hand for harvest and has been a great addition to the team — we’re so happy he’ll be staying on full time! Irineo and our vineyard team worked hard growing and hand-picking all of our fruit. Bill provided moral support for my first vintage as Winemaker. Bob and Julian made sure we were well fed during the long harvest days. Chris interned for a few weeks, and we had some great volunteers — Kate, Charlie, Mie, Jane, and Trevor!
I hope to share a glass of 2025 with many of you down the road. We’ve attached a few photos below of 2025 Harvest!
-Winemaker - Lauren O’Brien
