Schramsberg sabering marks the start of Napa Valley's sparkling 2023 harvest
By Tim Carl
CALISTOGA, Calif. — In the world of Napa Valley viticulture, what constitutes a normal harvest? With wine grapes harvested just once a year and each vintage offering slight deviations from the last, anticipation and excitement ripple through the valley as the harvest season commences.
Every year, this communal exhilaration reaches a celebratory crescendo at Schramsberg Vineyards, owned and operated by the Davies family. The season's harvest is marked by a ceremony that has become an anticipated tradition. In it, the owners and a few winery team members wield sabers to skillfully open bottles of sparkling wine. They then pour the bubbling contents into the first bins of harvested grapes, an act that intends goodwill and good fortune and resonates with echoes of the past, evoking the historic and once-prevalent ritual known as the "Blessing of the Grapes.”
“It's something that I look forward to every year,” said Hugh Davies, president of Schramsberg Vineyards. “How would we even know that it was harvest without sabering a few bottles of sparkling wine?”
The art of sabering, or sabrage, involves opening a bottle of sparkling wine or Champagne by striking the bottleneck with a short-sword or saber, a practice that adds to the pageantry and tradition of the harvest season.
2023 Schramsberg harvest begins — Tim Carl Video
No year is a normal year
Napa Valley's harvest typically starts with the harvest of sparkling wine grapes in early August, but this year has been atypical. While average harvests begin in August, many recent harvests have begun in July. However, this year, the grapes are coming in later than normal, but not as late as they did in 2011.
“In the past, we have started the harvest as early as late July, like in 1998, 2004, and 2015,” Davies said. "But we have also started later than this year, like in 2011 when we picked our first grapes on Aug. 29. Every year is different, and every year is exciting.”
In a nod to the not-normal nature of this year, last week, at least a few non-sparkling Napa Valley wine producers had begun bringing in grapes, including Matthiasson Winery and St. Supéry Estate Vineyards and Winery.
This year, the first grapes harvested for Schramsberg were 11 tons of pinot noir from Starscape Vineyard in Sonoma, just north of Forestville. The team expects to harvest chardonnay and more pinot noir from Napa's Carneros region within the next week or so.
A time-tested tradition
Nearly 60 years have passed since the late Jack and Jamie Davies bought and revived Schramsberg winery and vineyards in 1965. Each year they gathered at the start of harvest to celebrate the occasion. Since 2005, Hugh, their son and president of Schramsberg, has addressed the gathering, which includes the entire winery crew and a few visiting guests, each with a glass of Schramsberg 2019 Querencia Brut Rosé, a wine made from grapes from the Napa Carneros appellation that helps raise money for the Jack L. Davies Fund, an effort focused on preserving, protecting and promoting agricultural land in Napa County. According to Davies, this year the fund has contributed to the RCD’s Million Trees Initiative and to the Vine Trail’s north valley extension.
"It's another nearly flawless day here in Napa Valley," he said to the crowd, before repeating the greeting in Spanish.
After a welcome and a brief rundown of the upcoming harvest — including the expectation of 200 tons for 2023, the high quality of grapes and that the day's 11 tons of pinot noir would make a single press load — Davies acknowledged the intense work of the harvest and the shared camaraderie among those who know the intensity of a wine grape harvest.
When done, he passed out sabers to his team leaders and they took their places. Facing away from the gathering, Davies counted down from three before bottles were sabered to the crowd's delight, with foamy sparkling wine shooting into the air. Afterward, the remaining wine was poured into the awaiting bins of pinot noir grapes before being lifted high into the air by a forklift and dumped into an awaiting press.
"We've rarely started a harvest this late," said director of winemaking Sean Thompson. "But with the early rains and mild temperatures now turning hotter, this is looking like a very promising year for sparkling."
Davies grinned at Thompson’s comment.
"Maybe we say that every harvest is going to be great,” Davies said, “but this year it seems especially true.”
Tim Carl is a Napa Valley based photojournalist.