Harvest 2020: It's a wrap!

Yesterday, we brought in our last fruit for Sleight of Hand Cellars for the OUTSTANDING 2020 vintage! Although early, we think that this is one of the best vintages that Washington State has seen, on par with 2018, 2012, 2007, and 2002. We celebrated with a harvest lunch with the production team, provided by Andraes Kitchen, and paired with 2 bottles of delicious Northern Rhône wines. Keith, Taylor, Bailey, and Tim made this one of the smoothest harvests in memory. 

Trey put on a ton of miles this year in the harvest truck, spending time in the vineyards and making the picking calls for each block of fruit. In general, yields were slightly down across most blocks. Cluster health was top notch everywhere. Chemistry on all the incoming grapes were close to perfect. It feels like every lot coming in had terrific acidity, and color extraction was great. Flavors remained fresh all through the season. We are very excited to see these wines develop over the next couple of years in barrel! 

Trey and Keith dipped into the 2019's still in barrel yesterday as well, just to see how these wines are coming along. Everything is "tight as a drum", as they say, leading us to believe that these wines will be stellar candidates for a long cellar life. The Rhone varietal lineup (Sorceress Grenache, Levitation Syrah, and the Funkadelic and Psychedelic) were particularly showing well. Overall, the 2019 vintage is outstanding, and is a perfect complement to our winemaking philosophy and style. 

We hope everyone is holding up out there. We know that it can be difficult to be optimistic given the current state of affairs, but we want you to know, as our great friends at KEXP like to say, "You are not alone". You will always have Sleight of Hand Cellars by your side to help get you through it all. We appreciate you, we love you, and we can't wait to see you all face to face SOON!

All our best,

Trey, Jerry, Keith, and the entire SOFH Team