Harvest Recap from 2025 Vintage with Winemaker Katie Vogt
If there’s one word to describe the 2025 growing season, it’s dynamic — a year that demanded careful attention and thoughtful calibration. A cool spring set the tone, followed by a mild, measured summer. Rainfall hovered around average for most of the valley: Mt. Veeder clocked in at 57 inches to date, while downtown Napa saw 27 inches.
One of the most critical times to receive rain is right after harvest. In November 2024, Napa received a record-breaking 9.45 inches — well over the historical average of 2.68 inches. The result? Lush canopies, generous yields, and a growing season that required thoughtfulness and adaptability. Ripening a large crop under cool skies requires perfect choreography — every irrigation, canopy thinning, and fruit drop timed like clockwork.
As the season unfolded, winemakers and vineyard managers across the valley began to “land the plane,” as one of my favorite vineyard partners likes to say. It’s the culmination of hundreds of small, smart decisions made in concert — the collective intuition, experience, and precision of a deeply collaborative team. Multiply that across every vineyard block, and you’ve got the beautiful chaos of a vintage. In 2025, this added up to over 800 picks by our team — that’s a lot of planes to land.
The excitement of harvest is likely what draws every winemaker into the role they occupy today. There is nothing more thrilling than seeing something special in the vineyard and being able to translate that into bottle. In 2025, I believe Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc will be some of the most compelling white wines we’ve ever made.
Making a picking decision looks a little different each time — and for each winemaker — but for me it’s about 40% what I’m tasting and seeing in the block, 20% analysis, 15% historical knowledge of the site, 10% gut feeling, 10% weather-watching, and 5% logistics. Chardonnay surprised us this year: I saw incredible depth of flavor at lower Brix levels. The wines have a vibrating acidity balanced by striking flavor intensity. As a team, our Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc weekly tastings have become a highlight of the season.
In red wine world, 2025 has kept us on our toes. This has been a vintage of sprints — no leisurely jogs here. More than a few Sundays (normally reserved for a quiet moment or a quick vineyard check) turned into active harvest days ahead of incoming storms. Every ray of sunshine counted. While cooler years can raise concerns about green flavors, we’ve been fortunate — the character here leans savory and earthy rather than vegetal. The mountain sites, as always, delivered power and structure, and combined with this year’s vibrant acidity, they promise wines built for remarkable longevity.
The 2025 Napa vintage may have kept us guessing, but it rewarded every bit of patience and precision. It’s a vintage defined by teamwork, intuition, and trust — the very qualities that tend to yield the most soulful, age-worthy wines. We are excited to watch these wines evolve in barrel and bottle, and we look forward to sharing the story of 2025 in every glass.— Katie Vogt, Winemaker
