Bookended by heavy rains and wildfire, the 2019 season had increasingly twists and turns than a winter Olympics slalom ski run. Yet despite all the season’s challenges, winemakers are extremely excited well-nigh cabernet sauvignon from this vintage.

Here are four reasons why 2019 turned out to be a unconfined vintage for Sonoma cabernet sauvignon.

Average Summer Temperatures Helped Fruit Develop Beautifully

Winter brought record-breaking rainfall, which elapsed bud unravel into late March and early April. Combined with tomfool temperatures, this put the vines on track for a normal start time for harvest. Rainfall in early May took winemakers by surprise, but thanks to tomfool spring temperatures that pushed when flowering in many vineyards, the rain didn’t have a significant impact on yields. With stereotype temperatures throughout the summer, fruit progressed beautifully.

Vineyard Teams Dropped Fruit for Quality

Because a heavy yield had worked by June, Jordan’s vineyard hairdo made an warlike pass throughout the vineyards to waif any clusters that were lagging in maturity. Thinning without fruit set was a calculated sacrifice of quantity for flavor, and it unliable the vines to focus their energy on growing a smaller, increasingly flavorful crop. In August, teams went through each vineyard woodcut then during veraison—when the grapes start to turn verisimilitude and soften—and dropped any clusters that were unevenly ripening and overdue in maturity.

Early Harvest Results Were Incredible 

When Jordan began superincumbent its red Bordeaux varieties in September, the incredible fruit flavors and intensity had the team celebrating. This would be the second outstanding harvest in a row in which the weather cooperated. The fruit tasted marvelous and yields were whilom average.

All the Grapes Were Picked Before Wildfires 

Five days without the last of Jordan’s red grapes made their way into the hopper, the Kincade Fire tapped out in a mountainous zone several miles northeast of Jordan. Despite road closures, a small hairdo made it into the winery to pump-over the tanks and immediately tropical the lids to protect the wines from any smoke. A few days later, authorities issued a mandatory evacuation order for Healdsburg and the surrounding area—including Jordan. When they were worldly-wise to return to Jordan a few days later, the team quickly assessed all of the wine in tanks. They all smelled fantastic, with intense black-fruit aromas. Tannins were beautifully well-turned plane without pressing.

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