MacRostie Winemaker Heidi Bridenhagen’s vintage 2021 MacRostie Harvest Report: 

“We kicked off the harvest season by picking our Pinot Noir for Sparkling on Friday, August 27th. Yields were moderate across Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, while the weather was perfect, topping around 85-90F at the peak and dipping to the 50s at night. The year was uniquely dry, not just with the drought, but the humidity created an environment that ripened fruit phenologically earlier than average. Color was extracting from the skins, and the seeds and rachis were browning up earlier with still lower Brix and good acid.

Those facts, along with the amazing flavors and aromas that come with properly ripened fruit, make me feel confident saying this was the best quality harvest I have seen in my career of 15 harvests. That’s saying a lot as we have had many fantastic harvests.

We brought in just over 100 tons of Pinot Noir to our Westside Road Winery in Healdsburg. We broke down 13 different vineyards by clone and vinification technique into 75 individual fermentations. This enables our team to look at the characteristics of each part of the vineyards in detail and then create complexity and opportunity for our single barrel and single-vineyard wines.

We also harvested 14 tons of Bordeaux varietals, 10 tons of Sauvignon Blanc, and 3.5 tons of Zinfandel for our Clockwise program.

With our Chardonnay, we pulled in 266 tons from 20 different vineyards and another 93 tons of Pinot Noir from six additional Pinot Noir Vineyards.

In total, we brought in about 500 tons of fruit, all of which show incredible quality and uniqueness. I can’t wait to watch these wines evolve and mature and then share them with you!”

– Heidi Bridenhagen, Winemaker