One of the great loves of the R. Stuart Crew is throwing a dinner party; and when it comes to entertaining our own team, there are no holds barred. It is a long held tradition to gather our staff together for a holiday party to celebrate their incredible efforts of the year. Our production crew has finally settled into a slower rhythm after a wildly busy season, and the tasting room team has continued to deliver signature R. Stuart hospitality through the summer tourism months through to the holidays. The last thing they need to do is throw their own party, so it is with great joy that the “Executive Crew” (aka “Rob’s Elves”) steps in to lead the charge.

Rob is always happy to cheers to the season with Autograph Pinot Noir.

This year, Deven (General Manager), Casee (Direct Sales & Wine Club Manager), and Susy (Marketing & Events Manager) have teamed up to create an evening to remember. They will transform our tasting room into a one-night-only cocktail party fit for royalty, with flowing champagne and cocktails, delicious appetizers and cookies, and so much more. If you’re looking for inspiration for your holiday party, this party plan is your guide!

R. Stuart Must-Have Traditions

• Champagne: Rob’s one and only job for this party is to bring champagne. A tradition for over 10 years, Rob selects a bottle of champagne – true champagne from France – which he feels fits the palate and personality of each staff member. If you’re hosting a holiday party, consider a bottle of wine you feel best fits each of your friends. Tuck a little note explaining your choice into the bag, and they’ll think of you with every sip.
• Christmas crackers: A harkening to Maria’s childhood, in which she spent time in London with her family, Christmas crackers always make their way to our holiday table. Staff adorn themselves with paper crowns for the evening, and we take turns sharing the jokes or riddles around the table. We take joy seriously at our party and a cracker is the perfect spark of silly for everyone.

An array of R. Stuart wines guaranteed to be enjoyed at our holiday party.

The Drinks

• Wine: When we have such delicious wines at the ready, of course we’re going to enjoy them! Bubbly and Rosé d’Or will have a star role in the evening, alongside our Pinot noirs and Pinot Gris. You can also find us sampling bottles which our staff bring from their own collections. Encourage your guests to bring a bottle to share! The array of wine varietals, profiles, and vintages that will accumulate on your table may surprise you in more ways than one.
• Cocktails: Our holiday party is, in fact, a cocktail party. There will be sequins, velvet, and suit jackets to match the class of the cocktails presented. Deven is in charge of cocktails this year, and he has chosen to make two batch cocktails which are perfect to prepare ahead of the event.
  • Batched 50/50 Martini – New York Times Cooking | Our team loves a martini, and this NYT recipe is wonderful for guests to have a “choose your own adventure” moment with their level of dirty and other garnishes.
  • Bubbly and Bright Holiday Punch – Gabriella Baldwinn | To balance the martini, the other cocktail on deck will be this Aperol Spritz-meets-Negroni delight, which is topped with sparkling rosé. Three favorite drinks of R. Stuart staff all in one? Count us in!

The Food

• Snacks galore: A pillar of R. Stuart is the joy of pairing food and wine, and appetizers are no exception. With Casee leading the charge in this area, we know we’ll have to pace ourselves to still be hungry for the main course. She is including a few staples from our tasting room in addition to classic party hors d’oeuvres.
  • Mediterranean Pinwheels – Delish | Mediterranean foods and flavors are surefire pairings to the wines of R. Stuart. This recipe is quick to deliver and is easy to scale up for larger groups.
  • Cranberry Whipped Feta Dip – Delish | Feta? Delicious. Whipped feta? Absolutely more delicious. If you’ve never tried fluffing up this salty cheese, you’ll find a new obsession with its pairing to tart cranberries.
  • Homemade Focaccia – Caroline Anderson | Casee has recently become obsessed with fine-tuning her focaccia recipe, and this recipe has led the charge on her exploration.
  • Bacon Wrapped Dates with Goat Cheese – Pinch of Yum | Salty, sweet, and savory is precisely what we want to pair with Pinot noir.
  • Classic Hummus & Veggies – Bon Appetit | It’s always kind to balance the cheese and bread at a party with lighter fare. Select your favorite crunchy, in season vegetables (we suggest watermelon radishes, endive, and carrots) to tune it to the season.
  • Rosemary Cashews | Any visitor to our tasting room knows the aroma of our rosemary cashews. It simply wouldn’t be a party without a batch of these in the oven!
  • Crostini | A staple of our tasting room from yesteryear, this snack is as easy as a baguette from your favorite bakery plus 15 minutes in the oven. The key is lots of quality olive oil and kosher salt – don’t be scared to season!
• Support a local business: While Elf Casee prepares the appetizers of our dreams, we know that champagne and martinis are no match for solely a snack spread. Take a note out of our book and ease your meal-prep load by supporting a local business for take out. We selected Pizza Capo, co-owned by Rob’s son, Ben, as this year’s dining selection.

Something Sweet

Cakes and pies are always divine, but we’re opting to make dessert one-handed. Cookie platters are no new concept to holiday parties, and our combination of selections will please any sweet tooth.

• Spiced Molasses Cookies – Claire Saffitz | Chewy and perfectly spiced, these cookies absolutely scream ‘holidays’. This recipe is a great make-ahead dough to keep in your freezer for any time you want to pop a couple in the oven.
• Christmas Crack Cookies – The Palatable Life | If you’ve been on TikTok in recent months, you may have seen “Christmas Crack” on your FYP. Combining savory saltines with toffee and chocolate creates an all-in-one bite you’ll go back for time and time again.
• Chocolate Dipped Orange Palmiers – Crowded Kitchen | Just like the orange in the toe of your stocking, these cookies will awaken the holiday spirit. The best part is that they’re only 4 ingredients, with one of them being puff pastry! These cookies come together in just minutes.
• London Fog Shortbread – Wanderlust and Wellness | These perfectly buttery, delicately tea-infused shortbreads provides the balance to the other, more flavor-full, cookies in this spread. We’re already picturing dipping one of these into an espresso at the end of the evening. Additionally, we couldn’t help but pick up a few shortbread cookies from our friends at Carlton Bakery. Their lemon lavender flavor can’t be topped!
• Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies | We’re hesitant to even share a recipe here, as almost every household has their quintessential, tried and true version. Use your family’s go-to recipe to bring a bit of nostalgia into the mix.

Cheers To Your Holiday Party

At R. Stuart, we make wines deeply rooted in the belief that they can bring joy to life’s big and small occasions. One of our greatest joys is to be a part of your life’s celebrations this, and every, season. We raise a glass to you with immeasurable gratitude for your support. Cheers!

Today marks the final day of Harvest 2023 at R. Stuart! The cellar crew is pressing off Aurora Colony Vineyard Pinot noir – a new vineyard we’re working with this year – and Cabernet Sauvignon for our Three Clowns Cabernet. When the end is so near in sight, it encourages us to reflect on where we started. With that, we share our Harvest Report of 2023!

The Growing Season

After the wildfires and smoke of 2020, the intense heat waves of 2021, and an incredibly high-yield harvest in 2022, we were crossing out fingers for as “normal” of a season as possible. A soggy spring created nerves as we waited for bud break – which wound up being 3 weeks later than anticipated. The hope was that intense rains would not continue after bud break, as it can knock off the developing berries and lead to lower yields.

(Left: Bud break at Daffodil Hill Vineyard on June 12th. The small clusters gives us an idea of what yields will be. Below right: Clusters in full veraison at Daffodil Hill on August 22nd.)

The cooler weather brought concern to vineyard stewards as to whether the grapes would reach maturation in time. However, it became clear by late July that the vines were plenty happy and settling into the dry, sunny weather. Come August, the grape clusters were pronounced and beginning to show signs of veraison.

And then, almost out of nowhere, harvest came on fast and furious. It all began on September 6th with fruit from the Menefee Vineyard, which we use for sparkling wines. Fruit for sparkling wines comes in to our facility before Pinot noir, as the higher acidity levels in the grapes serve well for the structure and profile desired in a bottle of bubbles. While these were the first grapes we processed, our neighboring wineries were already bringing in Pinot noir the same week.

To Pick or Not to Pick

The Pinot began rolling in to our neighbors as the brix (sugar) levels reached 18-20°.  Many vineyards became concerned as fall rains began. Oregon’s fall weather swings drastically between days of downpouring rain and 80° afternoons, which is a prime breeding ground for molds and powdery mildews in the vineyards. This leads to a rush to harvest Pinot noir grapes before that becomes a reality.

While we saw the same brix levels in the grapes in our vineyards, Rob was hesitant to pick as early as others in September. He is notorious for telling vineyard growers to hold on picking for “just one more week”. Why let them hang? Well, just because a grape has reached the sugar level of “ripeness”, which technically means it can be picked, it does not mean it has full flavor. The longer hang time allows for a dynamic flavor profile to be established in the grape prior to processing. Rob’s attention to detail (there were weather forecasts from multiple sources tacked up to the winery office’s wall) kept us in the clear and allowed the Pinot grapes to hang a few weeks longer. While this process makes our harvest season longer than other producers, we believe it ultimately creates a more lush, flavorful wine in the end.

Let the Grapes Begin!

On September 20th, our first lots of Pinot noir entered the winery. By September 29th, we had brought in roughly 150 tons of fruit – equating to 40% of our anticipated tonnage. On top of processing our first lots of Pinot noir, filling the floor with fermenters, we were bottling almost every day in tandem. Fork lifts whirred past each other on a mission, working to ensure everything could be wrapped up at a decent hour that evening. In September alone, the cellar team bottled nearly 8,000 cases of wine.

(Left: A view of the winery floor when we had 195 tons of fruit in fermenters, all requiring manual cap management.)

The fast and furious really showed off in the first week of October. We brought in our final Pinot noir grapes on October 12th, and the final fruit came from Eastern Washington for 3 Clowns Cabernet Sauvignon the following week. We had so many fermenters that they not only filled the winery floor, but also our entire parking lot! Overall, that brought our total tonnage received to 371 tons – one of the larger vintages our winery has seen.

Amidst the controlled chaos of long days of harvest, we were lucky to have several old friends return to the winery for harvest. In classic fashion, the 3 Clowns tended to their Cabernet grapes and wines in barrel. Our friend Laura, who has come out to visit every year for the last 6 years, joined us from Vermont and brought her cocktail curations with her – making for some much appreciated happy hours after days of pressing. Nicole and Craig, former valley-dwellers who now live in the mid-West, earned their keep in the cellar with punch downs, press clean-outs, and morning bagels. It’s always a joy for us to have curious, humorous folks join us for harvest – and this year’s crew was no exception.

(Right: Cellar team member, Ben Glawe, after digging out an open-top fermenter. Below left: Cellar Manager, Nic Gates, on the first day of barreling down the 2023 vintage.)

The End is in Sight

In the same days that we processed our final grapes, we also began to press off fermenters. Floor spaced opened up as the press hummed away, pouring out beautiful, ruby juice that tasted just as good as it looked. This step rejuvenated the team with the same start-of-season excitement to push through the final weeks. When the product they’ve been working on so diligently is undeniably beautiful, there’s no wonder it put a little pep in their step.

With juice pressed off, the time to settle and barrel down began. Last week we started barreling the 2023 vintage, and we anticipate those 371 harvested tons to fill nearly 750 barrels. This brings us to today – our final press loads of Harvest 2023! This is considered to be the last day of harvest as it is the final time any grapes will be manipulated in our facility. At this point, it’s time for more barreling, and then the process of monitoring and letting the wines rest ensues.

Overall, Rob is truly thrilled with this year’s harvest. Between our team’s dynamics and work ethic, the quality of the fruit from all our vineyards, the stellar weather, and the traditions we are so lucky to continue, this harvest is one for the books. We cannot wait to share these wines with you in time!

If you want to see R. Stuart in action, join us for our Harvest Open House on November 18th! An annual celebration of the end of harvest, we invite wine club members, locals, and visitors alike to the winery to taste through our current portfolio of 2019 Single Vineyard Pinots and more. Peruse goods from Crowley House Farms, enjoy bites from Chef Kari of Hayward/Mac Market fame, and hang out with the R. Stuart Crew. This event is in tandem with our Harvest Sale, where wines will be up to 30% off. It’s the perfect time to stock up on your favorite R. Stuart bottles for your holiday table! You can purchase your tickets here. Cheers!

A long, hot summer’s day deserves something delicious and chilled to go with it. And while many folks prepare for the warm weather by stocking their fridges full of white wines, we’re sharing our hot take: chill a bottle of red wine instead.

From restaurants to home dining rooms, red wines are typically pulled from cellars and shelves at room temperature (68°-76°F) for serving. There’s a long time notion that a red wine expresses itself better at this temperature, and that chilling it would ruin its integrity and flavor. 

We know that there are definitely negative effects of heat on wine. At R. Stuart, we don’t ship our wines during the hottest parts of the season in order to prevent your wine from being “cooked.” A cooked wine’s fruit profile diminishes significantly, and instead becomes more like a “grape stew” with murky, muddied flavors and pronounced alcohol on the palate. So while we know we don’t want our wines really warm, what does chilling a red wine do?

Lighter bodied, lower alcohol wines are optimal for chilling as their profiles become more nuanced with a drop in temperature. This is perfect for the Pinot noir lover, as this grape is notoriously delicate and lighter bodied than varietals such as Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Merlot. When chilled, a lighter red such as Pinot will see its fruit profile enhanced (consider how delicious cold watermelon is compared to room temperature), while tannins and other astringents tend to mellow. 

Our tips to get a perfectly chilled bottle of red wine:

• Let the wine chill for 2-3 hours before serving, aiming for the wine to reach 55-60°F.
• Go for cold, but not ice cold. Wine can freeze, and the crystalline structures created in freezing can negatively affect the wine upon thawing.
• Need to chill a bottle quickly? Use the paper towel trick.
  • Wet a paper towel and wring out the excess water. Wrap the towel around the bottle and stick it in the freezer for 15 minutes. Upon removing, gently rock the bottle 2-3 times to circulate the wine inside the cold bottle for additional chill.

When you’re ready to bring the bottle to the table, invite your guests to pay attention to how the wine changes as it warms up in their glass. How does the fruit profile change? Acidity? Tannins? Overall structure on your palate? There’s no “right” or “wrong” thing to notice! Ultimately, the goal is for you to find your ideal chill and to enjoy it just as you’d like.

As the warmer days continue, we give you the green light to chill our wines for a hot day near the grill. You just may find your new summer obsession! We think our Love, Oregon Pinot Noir and Vignette Pinot Noir are perfect candidates for chilling and experimentation with temperature.

Chill, grill, and share with us how you enjoy your red wines!

In the back corner of our winery, there’s a “House Rules” sign from the early days of R. Stuart. On the list are values which we still hold near and dear to our hearts, even 20 years after our humble beginnings: “Protect and respect the fruit and its grower,” “Single vineyard bottlings are always interesting,” and “Good friends, good food, good wine – period.” However, listed as #6 on the House Rules is something we still believe in, but is a rule we’ve broken over the years. It reads, “Scores, schmores: You know what you like and so do we. Submit our wines to critics? Nope, not us. We don’t play that game. Come on, you be the judge.”

It’s true that in the first years of R. Stuart, we did not submit our wines for scoring. Rob and Maria were committed to the notion that scores did not add anything to our wines – rather they validated our product by someone else’s subjective palate. The core of their ideology was not far-fetched. When a winery or producer sends their scores to be reviewed, a variety of factors influence how the wine will be scored. A relationship with the wine writer, previously earning high scores from the reviewer, having the financial means to submit a wine (submissions can range anywhere from $20 to $300 or more, per wine submitted) in addition to paying for the score to be promoted (which can cost $500-$3,000+!), or even submitting a wine that is trendy, can all influence the wine’s final review.

Many consumers believe that the points assigned to a wine indicate just how delicious the product is, when often the score actually reflects the “typicity” and production quality of the wine. According to Madeline Puckette of Wine Folly, “Typicity is how much the traits of a particular wine ‘typify’ the style and region it’s from.” So while a consumer sees a 94 point wine on the shelf, their school-trained-brains automatically assign it an ‘A,” believing it must be a good wine, yet that’s not always the bottom line.

When looking at wine scores, here’s what we encourage you to consider:

• The Reviewer or Source vs. Your Preferences
  • Just as you may like a wine that your friend doesn’t, some critics may like or dislike a wine that other critics gave a rave review to. The bottom of line, always, is that it’s subjective. Rob has long said that his favorite wine will depend on the day he’s had and the people he’s surrounded by. It’s likely safe to assume those same parameters apply to wine reviewers. 
  • Whether it’s a wine publication or a personal blog, take some time to determine who actually reviewed the wine and whether you generally agree with their taste. Some critics and reviewers prefer bold, undeniable flavors while others prefer nuances and subtleties in wine, which can ultimately affect scores they assign. Understanding a reviewer’s general profile can help you understand how to interpret the scores presented, and connect whether those wines will fit your taste.
• The Scale Used to Evaluate the Wines
  • This is probably the trickiest part of wine scores. As said earlier, our brains are pretty well trained from school days to see 90+ points as a good score; this leads to many folks skipping over suggestions of 89 points and below. However, when the actual scale is in front of you, it becomes obvious how subtle the differences between a 93 and a 94 actually are, and what they truly mean.
  • Take Wine Enthusiast’s scale, for example:
    • 98-100 points – Classic
      94-97 points – Superb
      90-93 points – Excellent
      87-89 – Very Good
      83-86 – Good
      80-82 – Acceptable
    • In this scale, a “very good” wine differs from a “superb” wine only by 4 points. The language used can also be subjective – what is “excellent” vs. “superb”?
  • Wine & Spirits Magazine, as another example:
    • 95+ points – Superlative, rare finds
      90-94 – Exceptional examples of their type
      86-89 – Highly recommended
      80-85 – Good examples of their variety or region
    • In this scale, the language used shows that they are reviewing based on the “typicity” which Puckette refers to. A wine that scores 96 points from this reviewer does not necessarily mean that it’s an exceptional tasting wine, but rather a rare find. A wine scoring an 83 should still be considered a good example of the wine’s type or region.

When it comes to R. Stuart wines, scores are varied and range wine to wine. Let’s take a look at recent examples of scores we’ve received which show the discrepancy between two reviewers.

• 2020 Love, Oregon Pinot Noir
  • Wine Enthusiast: 88 points, “Very good”
  • Beverage Testing Institute: 93 points, Gold
• 2020 Love, Oregon Chardonnay
  • Wine Enthusiast: 89 points, “Very good”
  • Beverage Testing Institute: 80 points, Bronze

If a consumer were to see both scores attached to the bottle on the shelf, they’d likely be conflicted by the information. Is it a “third place bronze” wine or “very good”? Is it “very good” or “first place gold”? It’s at this point that we suggest you pause, step back, and come back to your own palate. Trust yourself. As a wine drinker, you’ve likely come to an understanding of the qualities in a wine that you favor and are absolutely allowed to use that as your guide.

While a particular bottle may have a high score, you may notice that it’s a varietal that you tend not to enjoy. Or maybe you see a bottle on the shelf that has zero fanfare, but is from a region you’ve always wanted to try. What should you do? Try it! The R. Stu Crew regularly gets together to try bottles that we each enjoy, are wanting to learn about, want to give a second chance, or that are so bizarre that we can’t help but pop the cork. Sometimes, the wines are total flops. But other times, we find bottles of wine that catch us off guard and have us keeping a close eye on the bottle to make sure we get another taste.

These days, when it comes to our wines and scores, we’re willing to bend the rules a bit. We understand that scores can help sell wine and get it in the hands of someone who otherwise wouldn’t have looked twice. It’s also a huge pat on the back to our wine production team when we receive a score to be proud of. They put incredible amounts of time and knowledge into each bottle that leaves our facility, and they deserve all the praise in the world. So while not all of our bottles will tote a score, rest assured that we believe all of our wines are classic, superlative, gold-level wines, and we wouldn’t share them with you unless they were.

If you’ve caught our most recent newsletters, you know that our anticipation for this year’s harvest has been steadily building. One of the wildest parts of winemaking is that there is no tried and true “start date” to harvest. In 2011, our harvest motto was, “November is the new October,” alluding to the later-than-normal start time to that year’s harvest. In a different year, the first fruit we received came through the winery mid-September. Year to year, our timeline is dictated by forces out of our control – keeping us on our toes for when our busiest season will begin.

At this point in the growing season, there are several indicators which determine the quality and timing of harvesting the grapes. Among them include visual cues, technical specifications, and weather. While each of these factors and their impacts will vary by grape varietal, they are all crucial to pay attention to in order to create beautiful, compelling wines.

The most discussed factor in regard to vineyard growth and quality is weather. Earlier this year, winemakers and viticulturists around the valley were concerned with the late bout of frost we faced in April. Some winemakers anticipated losing up to 50% of their crops. Fortunately, R. Stuart has been relieved to see that our partnering vineyards were not largely affected, and we do not foresee any major repercussions to our crop yields. The one exception we are considering is with our white wine varietals, like chardonnay. Budbreak, the beginning of new shoots and vines, happens earlier on varietals like chardonnay; being hit by frost in the early stages of development can affect the overall quality of the plant.

When asking our Production Winemaker, Jordan Rosenberry, why white wines are affected by frost more than reds, he said that it comes down to elevation. “We have to pay attention to locale when considering the effects of frost. Lower elevations are warmer climates and have faster growing seasons, while higher elevations are colder and take longer to mature. Our Pinot noirs are grown at lower elevations, while our whites, like chardonnay, are grown at higher elevations.” Frost at a low elevation site can be stressful, but not as stressful as when at a high elevation site. Putting an already cold site with slower maturation time through a frost would make a quick turn to there being little to zero yield of fruit.

Rob chooses to source white wine grapes from high elevation vineyards because it creates the ideal palette for the white wines he likes to make, which are off dry. Both cooler temperatures and high elevation slow sugar development in the grapes and can lend to a higher acidity in their profile. This makes for our favorite, incredibly food friendly white wines. Some of the “chosen grapes,” like chardonnay, are turned into our sparkling wines.

Looking ahead to this harvest, our team overwhelmingly feels that our Pinot crops are in good shape. The Hirschy vineyard, located in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA, produced only 13 tons of fruit in 2021; this year, we are anticipating upwards of 35 tons. Similarly, Courting Hill vineyard produced 35 tons last year, and crop estimates are currently sitting at almost 90 tons.

The transformation of grapes in the vineyard happens quickly. Both photos above were taken at Daffodil Hill Vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills. The left was taken August 15th, while the right – showcasing the process of veraison – was taken August 24th.

As we take time looking at the vines in this season, we are keeping a close eye on the progress of veraison. This is one indicator of the vines that is most exciting to us – it’s the proof of the grape’s strength and potential. Veraison, or the changing of the grape’s color, is the first opportunity for vineyard stewards to get a crop estimate. If you were to take the weight of a cluster of grapes in veraison and double that number, that is what you anticipate the weight of the clusters at the time of harvest to be. Between seeing how many clusters are on each vine, and the number of vines to the acre, we have a decently accurate gauge of our crop yields. The intel we gather at the veraison stage influences everything in our production – whether that’s how much fruit we should anticipate coming into our facility, all the way to how much glass we will need to order for bottling the wine two years down the line.

Cellar Manager, Nick Gates, also manages a personal vineyard outside of his time with R. Stuart. Beyond veraison, he is also looking for other visual cues of a healthy canopy. As the weather continues to warm each year, he mentions that he keeps an eye out for yellowing leaves, which indicates drought stress. Don’t worry, though – Nick also shared that, “Right now, water is not a concern and everything looks healthy.” Nick also considers the compactness of clusters, which can create prime environments for disease. When the grapes are tight in the cluster, it prevents air flow and creates a breeding ground for unhealthy powdery mildew.

Rob takes a look at a vine at Daffodil Hill, noting the length between the nodes. The shorter the distance between the nodes, the colder it was during that growing period. Toward the end of the vine, longer lengths show the influence of warm weather, as the vines stretch toward the sun.

Preventative measures, such as spraying sulfur in the vineyards, will mitigate such diseases. If you have ever been out for a wine tasting on a summer day and smelled something akin to rotten eggs, you might actually be smelling disease prevention! The spraying of sulfur is a method to prevent powdery mildew, as it is a fungal disease that infects green plant tissue. This means that grapes are most susceptible to this disease starting at budbreak until veraison.

Among the best indicators of the quality of grapes and vines is also the most simple: we taste a lot of grapes. “We are constantly tasting the grapes in the vineyard because, ultimately, we are looking at the grape in its entirety – not just for its technical specifications,” says Casee Clark, our Sales and Club Manager. “The bottom line is that if the fruit isn’t good simply as fruit, then it won’t make for good wine.”

We have been making frequent trips out to our vineyards to keep close eyes on the progress of the vines. As of now, we are anticipating our first fruit – white varietals that will turn into sparkling wines – at the end of September. Wine Club members will be invited to join us on September 24th for a return to events at the winery. At this Pick Up Party, club members will have the opportunity to share well wishes for the harvest season, learn the ins and outs of how the heck it all happens in our space, and taste some of our newest projects in the R. Stuart family of wines (can you say Gamay?). Our team is eager to see everyone back together. If you want to join in on events like these, we invite you to explore our wine clubs. Join one of our clubs by September 13th, and you’ll be able to pick up your first shipment at this very party!

And then? Well, Rob’s projection of harvest being in full swing is sometime in early October. Of course, only time will tell. Over the next few weeks, we will be busy with bottling projects and cleaning to ensure there is plenty of floor space for the many fruit bins that will soon fill the winery. While it may be two years until you taste the 2022 vintage, the time we are taking now in the vineyard is ensuring that you will enjoy incredible wines for years to come.