Our friends at Stewart Cellars posted a great post on Instagram yesterday about the yields and what that means for taste.

Here’s what they had to say:

Pictured here are normal sized berries vs average size berries for this 2021 harvest. Yields are extremely low in the vineyards for a number of reasons: frost damage at the end of last season, fluctuations in temperature during flowering, but most importantly drought. When there is no water in the ground, there is poor cell division during the growth of the berry, making them smaller.

The question is, how does the effect quality? Here was their answer:

Well it certainly isn’t bad for quality! In fact, quality will be absolutely amazing because of the skin to pulp ratio of these smaller berries; however, the quantity will be low, meaning less wine to go around. Expect limited production for the 2021 vintage valley-wide.