2019 Harvest Wrap Up

2019 has been a fast-paced, non-stop year for the Suveg Cellars Team. We’ve grown leaps and bounds since our opening in 2018 on California, growing our Wine Club family to reach members as far off as Ohio! As Suveg Cellars grows, so does the amount of wine Craig needs to make each year to keep up. His 2019 Harvest was the largest on record. Working with the team at Lucas and Lewellen in Santa Barbara for upwards of a month, Craig spent long hours traveling to and from the central coast, creating what will become our 2019 vintage. Here are a couple pictures of harvest grapes before we get into the nitty-gritty.

Pictured above are Malbec and Dolcetto grapes, which were the first to come in from the vineyard. Harvest started very late this year, giving grapes maximal hang time to develop rich and complex flavors. Malbec and Dolcetto came in first close to mid-October, with Sangiovese, Petite Sirah, Barbera, Nebbiolo and more coming in over the next 4 weeks.

Much of the harvest was done at night this year, where Craig and crews worked into the night to crush grapes at the optimal times. See above are several photos of the crush, where large field bins were lifted into the air b and dumped through an industrial size crusher.

After each batch of grapes had undergone primary fermentation, Craig and the L&L team worked for hours raking out fermented grapes to be pressed. The juice is then pumped over to other tanks for secondary fermentation, where Craig can be seen clearing any particulate matter off freshly pressed juice.

Altogether this was Craig’s largest harvest ever, working with an unprecedented amount of tonnage to keep up with where Suveg Cellars is heading.

As the winery continues to grow and makes its most earnest efforts to build wine culture and craftsmanship in the Yucaipa Valley, we ask only one thing of our growing wine community - speak up, and get involved. Whether it’s by showing up at a Yucaipa Valley Wine Alliance event, starting your own business in the valley, learning to make wine, or planting your first vine, every little effort to improve our community and turn the Yucaipa Valley into a destination pushes us in the right direction. We urge everyone to think about what this region can become, and how you can help to make the vision a reality.

Warmly,

The Suveg Cellars Team