Harvest has a way of making time move quickly.

One minute, you’re waiting for the first grapes to arrive. Then suddenly, the cellar is full, fermentations are underway, and the team is already looking ahead to what comes next. The pace may eventually slow down, but the work doesn’t stop when the last bins come through the door.

As we move toward the end of the 2026 harvest, we’re entering one of the most interesting stages of the vintage: the transition from harvest into winemaking. Now, with much of the fruit in the cellar, our attention turns increasingly toward what is happening inside the tanks and fermenters. This is where grapes begin to reveal their personalities in a different way.

The fruit that arrived at the winery only days or weeks ago is now actively changing. Fermentation is underway, and our winemaking team is tasting, monitoring, and making decisions based on how each lot is progressing. There’s a lot of science involved, but there’s also an element of instinct that comes from experience, knowing when to make a change, and when to simply give the wine time.

It’s also too early to make any grand declarations about the vintage.

That’s one of the things we love about this time of year. There are clues, certainly. We can see how the fruit came into the cellar, we can taste the early stages of fermentation, and we can compare what we’re seeing with our expectations based on the growing season. But wine takes time, and the story of a vintage isn’t written in the first few weeks.

Instead, we’re watching the color develop. We’re smelling the fermentations. We’re tasting the wines as they change. We’re paying attention to texture, structure, aromatics, and balance. And we’re thinking about how best to preserve the character of the fruit and the places it came from.

For Dobbes, that connection to place is an important part of the process. Because our fruit comes from vineyards across the region, harvest gives us the opportunity to see how different sites and growing conditions express themselves in the cellar. Even when two lots come into the winery around the same time, they can behave very differently once fermentation begins.

As the last fruit makes its way through the cellar, the energy of harvest will gradually shift. The early mornings and long days of receiving fruit will give way to a quieter rhythm of monitoring, tasting, and letting the wines develop. The sorting table will eventually empty out, but the vintage will continue to occupy the cellar for months and, in some cases, years.

We’re grateful to everyone who helped get the fruit here, from our vineyard partners and their teams to the people working behind the scenes at the winery. And we’re excited to keep following these wines as they develop.

Derek Einberger, Winemaker