We had grape samples from six of our blocks in Eagle Point, Oregon, analyzed on August 26, 2026, five days before our first pick of the year. Sugar by block, in Brix:
Block 1A: 21.5
Block 1B: 20.1
Block 2A: 20.6
Block 2B: 21.4
Block 3a: 21.2
Block 3b: 21.1
The pH ran from 3.23 to 3.38, and total acidity from 6.6 to 8.5 g/L. It looked like a rapid year, with good acidity for the sugar level compared with 2025.
Two weeks earlier
At the August 12 baseline, sugar across the blocks ran from 16.1 to 17.9 Brix. Our vineyard looked nearly identical to the year before, while other Rogue Valley sites were running earlier.
The season so far
March was nearly 5°F warmer than normal at the Medford airport. Frost followed on April 3 and 4 and again on April 17, down to 28 or 29°F at the airport and in modeled data for our vineyard. The summer’s high at the airport was 106°F, on August 6.
By August 26, our site’s modeled growing degree days (the heat total that tracks ripening) were about 13% above the 30-year average (1991 to 2020) for late August.
We picked the first fruit on August 31.
