Is sweeter fruit always a good thing?

Sweeter grapes do not make sweeter wine. They make stronger wine. All of that sugar turns into alcohol, so how sweet the fruit tastes in your hand is really a number telling you how hot the finished bottle is going to be. That is why the first thing we do when fruit arrives is measure it — sugar and acid, before anything else touches it. Those two numbers decide most of what a wine is going to be.

This year’s crush was extra sticky. Hands, hoses, the floor, everything stayed tacky all day. The numbers said the same thing: one lot came in at 28 Brix, which is the measure of sugar in the juice, and left alone it would ferment out somewhere past sixteen percent alcohol. The acid side matched it — pH above four, and acid is what keeps a red from tasting soft and dull. None of that is bad fruit or a careless grower. It is what a hotter season does: sugar climbs fast in heat and acid burns off while it climbs, so the numbers outrun the flavor.

So we correct it, in the cellar, before fermentation ever starts: water back to bring the sugar down, tartaric acid to bring the pH back up. That is not a shortcut and it is not unusual — it is the standard correction for a warm vintage, and most serious California reds you drink have had some version of it. What we aim at is the wine we want in two years, not the numbers the weather handed us. Measure, move it a little, measure again. It is the difference between a 2026 red that tastes balanced and one that tastes like the weather ran away with it.

— Ray