As we do each year around this time, we like to pause and reflect on our most recent year, recap the growing season, and give you an idea of what you can look forward to with our most recent vintage.
2024 Vintage Report
Every vintage tells a story shaped by the land, the people, and the weather. The 2024 growing season began with uncertainty after a severe cold snap in January. Like most BC wineries, our vineyards suffered significant winter damage. All early signs, including bud dissections, indicated that we could expect little to no crop and limited shoot growth.
Even though we were anticipating a near 100% crop loss in our estate vineyard, we still had work to do, including pruning. We decided to prune the vines mostly as we normally do, while also working on regeneration of the vines to ensure their survival and a healthy crop in the years ahead.
With the arrival of spring, we were thrilled to see that most of our vines had survived the very harsh winter. Our vineyard manager Chris Marquardt explained, “Our commitment to the land and the sustainable practices we’ve had in place for many years contributed to the high survival rate of our vines. Healthy soils create healthy plants that are strong enough to face the considerable challenges we have seen in recent years.”
Spring and early summer were marked by cool, overcast days including frost and cooler temperatures through late April. We saw an early bud break on April 24th followed by significant growth in the vineyard in late May and June.
Our vineyard team had a lot of work to keep up with this growth, despite limited productive buds. We had particularly windy conditions in June, which had an impact on our Riesling blocks during flowering. With some positive signs as the season progressed, we adjusted our forecast to approximately 20-30% of our normal crop.
Bloom started on schedule mid-June, particularly in our signature Cabernet Franc and Riesling vines. Conversely, in our Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon blocks, there was little to no fruit. Our vineyard team worked on retraining these vines to prepare them for 2025.
As the season progressed, July and August brought warm, dry weather, although temperatures stayed below extreme highs. We had very few days above 39 degrees Celsius and, we started to see the very early stages of veraison on August 11th.
The ripening period from veraison onwards was excellent. The slow ripening conditions, paired with healthy fruit and no smoke threats, allowed us to patiently wait for optimal maturity. We started harvest on September 13th with Chardonnay for our Blanc de Blanc Traditional Method Sparkling wine.
September continued with warm days but turned wet towards the end of the month. An overcast and damp October, with minimal frost issues, led to a fall with beautiful yellowing of the leaves in our vineyard until late in the season.
We completed harvest a little earlier than normal on October 18th with Cabernet Franc from our Red Rock Vineyard.
Although the overall crop was very small, the balance of acids and sugars was better than in 2023, with lower pH levels and good sugar levels, contributing to vibrant wines.
An Innovative Solution: Our “Here & There” Collection
Early in the season, anticipating a very small harvest, we set out on a unique and innovative way forward. We ventured beyond our borders to the renowned vineyards of Washington, seeking to create a unique expression of our winemaking tradition. We partnered with a winery in Washington, where our winemaking team could produce wine with grapes from Washington using our protocols and in our winemaking style.
Featuring hand-picked grapes from select vineyards in Washington, we made these wines in our style. Our Here & There wines were crafted by our winemaking team in both Washington and Lillooet. Our winemaker Alex Nel stayed in Lillooet to work on our estate grown grapes while he also oversaw our assistant winemaker Seth Jex, who, after working several harvests in Ontario, Lillooet, and South Africa, looked after harvest, crush, and fermentation of our Washington grown grapes.
The wines from grapes grown in Washington have been bottled separately with a distinct label in our Here & There collection.
To read a full account of our 2024 harvests in both Lillooet and Washington, click here.
Our combined 2024 harvests were still smaller than normal, resulting in approximately:
- 45 tons of estate fruit (about 30% of a normal harvest)
- 68 tons of Washington fruit
- 113 tons of total fruit (combined about 75% of a normal harvest)
What to Expect from our 2024 Vintage
From our Lillooet estate grapes, we produced very small quantities of Riesling, Reserve Riesling, Pinot Gris, Blanc de Blanc, and Grüner Veltliner for our whites. For red, we harvested Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Alex explained, “Our estate white wines are fresh with lovely aromatics, while our estate reds show great tannin structure and rich colour. Notably, our Red Rock Cabernet Franc and Grüner Veltliner are showing exceptional promise and are the standouts from our estate harvest.”
From the Washington grapes, we produced Riesling, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, and Rosé. Each varietal was sourced from single, select vineyards. Seth explained, “I am particularly excited about our Washington Rosé. We made it from Syrah grapes from a vineyard planted in 1998 in the Wahluke Slope AVA (American Viticulture Area) in Washington. This Syrah Rosé is inspired by South African Syrah Rosés.” Both Seth and Alex have worked with Syrah for Rosé in South Africa, and we can’t wait for you to try this one.
We will start releasing our 2024 Washington wines in early April. They are expressive, youthful and fresh, vibrant, and perfect to enjoy this spring and summer.
Additionally, we are pleased to share that we have produced a limited release Vineyard Cider Rosé again, which we will be releasing this spring.
With two estate vintages in a row at roughly 30-35% of our normal production, we are grateful to have been able to produce a collection of wines from Washington grapes. Through resilience and adaptability, we navigated the challenges of 2024, crafting wines from both Lillooet and Washington grapes that reflect the character of this unique season. This vintage is a testament to resilience, respect for the land, and the spirit of exploration.
While the journey has had some challenges over the years, it is one we are passionate about. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has shared in our journey and has supported us through the challenging and the wonderful times. When you reach for our wines and when you share them with your friends and family, you help keep us going, you help keep our winery viable, and you help us keep our team employed and doing what we enjoy. Thank you for your love and support, today and always.
Information and images courtesy of the winery.
