Harvest provides local winery security for at least the next one to two years.
By Melody Gonzales
This years local grape harvest is expected to be a fruitful one for one local winery, which could be a great sign for other wineries in the area that suffered a less than bountiful crop the past two seasons.
Those with Palisade’s Red Fox Cellars say this harvest will allow them to produce about 5,000 gallons of wine– and to put that into perspective, that’s about 2,100 cases.
Although, it won’t entirely make up for the loss Red Fox Cellars endured from the past two harvests, it will provide security for at least the next one to two years.
“We got our harvest this year. It’s one of the best harvest on record for the valley. We don’t know if we are going to get a harvest next year, so what it does is– we try to make all the wine that we possibly can this year just in case,” Red Fox Cellars’ Winemaker Chad Hamilton said.
Hamilton says the key to a successful wine harvest is perseverance and patience, especially, with red wines which can take any where from 2 to 5 years before a bottle even ends up on the shelf.