Winemaker Van Johnson of Wedding Oak Winery Gives His “Inside Perspective” on Harvest 2024

The 2024 wine harvest season is underway for Wedding Oak Winery in Texas, and we’re excited to see the results of exceptional viticulture from our vineyard partners. This is my second harvest with Wedding Oak Winery, and it promises to be another year of high yields of high-quality grapes, thanks to favorable growing conditions in the vineyards.

We’re committed to producing distinctive wines that capture the unique terroir of each vineyard. Fortunately, we work closely with some of the best growers in the state to get the best quality fruit. I get a lot of job satisfaction from working the vines with our growers throughout the year from the day the vines emerge from winter dormancy until we pick the first clusters of white grapes in the Hill Country. Now our winemaking team gets to transform this year’s grape crop into an array of exquisite wines, ensuring that every bottle tells a story of dedication, passion, and the rich heritage of Texas winemaking.

The warm winter led to a notably brief hibernation period for most of the grapevines and an early bud break. The warm, wet spring and an early summer in Central Texas accelerated the fruit bloom by about two weeks ahead of expectation. This shift in the natural cycle has set the stage for a unique and promising growing season.

In addition to warm weather conditions, we experienced a substantial amount of rain throughout the main ripening phase in the hill country. Luckily, there were no major hail incidents between early spring and harvest season that affected our growers. Due to the wet weather, however, we decided to pick the Roussanne grapes a little early to stay on target with the natural acidity and natural sugars needed for our wines.

At Wedding Oak Winery, we continually strive to balance brix, pH, TA, and phenolic ripeness across our growers to produce exceptional wines. Because the weather after the main ripening phase has been consistently warm and dry, it has created a unique challenge where the grapes achieve analytical ripeness before reaching full phenolic and physiological maturity. So, aside from the Roussanne, we’re working to achieve higher brix levels for the other types of Texas-grown grapes we’re harvesting this year as compared to 2023. This means we’ll allow the fruit to hang on the vines a bit longer to ensure greater phenolic ripeness.

I believe the harvest quality and yield will be excellent this year. We are experiencing another period of surplus similar to that of 2023.

I’m particularly excited about our first Tannat Rosé, which we’re sourcing grapes for from Hye Top Vineyards. They have freshly grafted Tannat vines, and since these vines are still young, they are perfect for producing a Tannat Rosé. We will employ a direct-press method, resulting in minimal skin contact. This approach will allow us to craft a lighter, vintage-style rosé that promises to be both unique and delightful.

The 2024 harvest is near completion in the Texas Hill Country. We expect our fruit from the Texas High Plains starting in August and will continue taking in grapes until possibly early October. The first ones to come off the vines are the whites. This year, our first grape to pick was the Roussane. The chemistry numbers were there early, so we went ahead and picked it. We just picked the Texas Hill Country Tempranillo grapes. As we shift into the Texas High Plains, we will harvest white and red wine varieties such as: Trebbiano, Cinsault, Touriga Nacional, and Graciano. These are part of our award-winning red and white wines.

We eagerly anticipate sharing the finished bottles with Wedding Oak Winery fans, showcasing the exceptional wines crafted from the vineyards of Texas Hill Country and Texas High Plains!

Photo credits to Wedding Oak Winery