Hurry Up and Wait

Predawn on a foggy morning, I found myself driving on a quiet country road. Sprawling pastures dotted with cows stretched out on either side. The destination was Highland Hills Vineyard on the edge of the Ramona Grasslands County Preserve. I was heading out to meet up with the Los Pilares team to start their 2023 grape harvest.

Upon arriving at the modest 15-acre Highland Hills Vineyard, I was greeted by Coleman Cooney and Richard McClellan. Richard, a spry older man in a bucket hat and faded flannel with pruning shears hanging from his belt, is the grower who oversees the vineyard. Coleman, a partner at San Diego winery Los Pilares, also dressed the part—full denim, white beard, glasses, and a well-worn cowboy hat. He wore the look of someone more comfortable among the vines than in a tasting room well. “Hold on, let me hide the pesticides,” Coleman says, a subtle quip that offered a taste of his bone-dry sense of humor.

Even at first glance, it’s clear that Highland Hills is not a pesticide-laden operation. Instead of trying to put nature in a stranglehold, the vineyard looks like a lush garden with wild vines spilling over their designated aisles. Highland Hills takes a softer approach to vineyard management, shepherding the vines through their growth, allowing nature to balance itself out and only intervening when necessary.

The harvest crew for the day was a group of local wine advocates. Leading the charge was Chelsea Coleman, cofounder of The Rose and Mabel’s Gone Fishing and a longtime friend of Los Pilares who’d been helping harvest for years. A local hospitality industry pro and some enthusiastic friends joined her. The only absent party member was Coleman Cooney’s partner, Michael Christian, who was back at the home vineyard, Vedat de Caza, fulfilling the crucial (if slightly less glamorous) role of bird abatement duty.

Like many wine producers, Los Pilares works with a network of trusted growers. Their grapes come from a diverse set of vineyards: Highland Hills in Ramona, Hunter & Mazzetti Vineyards on the Rincon Indian Reservation, and their home vineyard 3,000 feet above sea level on the Julian-Santa Ysabel postal border, a cool 25 miles away.

Unlike the vast, uniform vineyards of Napa Valley, which can sprawl across 600 acres, San Diego’s wine country is geographically diverse. Here, hobby vineyards reign supreme, with the largest topping out at around 40 acres. Los Pilares’ sourcing strategy takes advantage of the diverse microclimates that make San Diego wine a complex and fascinating region to explore. Vedat de Caza, the Los Pilares home vineyard, sits in a zone where you’re more likely to find apple orchards and vineyards.

“This is a mountain of quartz; it’s one of our best crops,” Coleman told me. “We’re up at 3,600 feet, within 30 miles of the coast, and only a couple miles away from one of the world’s greatest deserts”

With a diverse set of microclimates to work with in San Diego, winemakers have been experimenting with a wide range of grapes. During a tour of Vedat de Caza, Michael Christian noted how far San Diego wine has come: “If you asked me what San Diego wine was 60 years ago, it’s pretty simple—it was sticky muscat.” Knowing they could source grapes like muscat and grenache from lower-elevation vineyards in the county, they headed uphill to experiment.

Coleman pointed to the far side of the vineyard, which was almost indistinguishable from the surrounding environment.

“Over there, where the pais [also known as mission grape] is planted, is bobcat land.” Here, in the home vineyard, Coleman is working to figure out which grapes will thrive in this unique microclimate. “Some people obsess over one thing, like it has limestone, but it is always in drought. The whole idea is kind of dumb.” He adds, “If you have to truck in water, your vineyard is probably in the wrong place.”

Water was not a problem for San Diego in 2023. While the rest of the nation was dealing with a very hot year due to El Niño, Southern California experienced a wetter-than-average winter with several strong Pacific storms bringing significant rain to the low country and heavy snowfall to the mountains. This was followed by a cool summer that lacked the major heat spikes we have experienced in previous years. The grape harvest in 2023 ended with a long-awaited soft landing for the grapes.

But the year wasn’t without close calls. San Diego has been experiencing more unpredictable weather, and 2023 was no exception. The threat of Hurricane Hilary could have caused major damage to grape crops. Eastern Pacific tropical cyclones typically weaken as they move north due to cold ocean currents; however, warmer sea temperatures last August brought Hilary close to making landfall in the San Diego area with hurricane strength before being downgraded to a tropical storm.
Cooler and wetter summer weather led to a delay in harvest—a logistical nightmare for winemakers. The silver lining is that it allowed grapes to spend more time on the vine ripening. Referred to as “hang time,” this translates to more leisurely sugar development, preserving the acidity that can vanish too quickly under relentless sunshine.

“ 2023 IS ONE OF THE TWO TOP VINTAGES I HAVE SEEN IN THE PAST 15 YEARS. WHEN YOU TASTE IT, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND.” — JODY BRIX, J. BRIX WINES

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After harvest, I met up with Jody Brix, one of the founders of J. Brix Wines, another San Diego-based winery. When asked what the weather meant for the vintage, Jody quickly responds, “2023 is one of the two top vintages I have seen in the past 15 years. When you taste it, you will understand.” The additional time leads to “increased complexity and more character,” he explains. To put it simply, good things take time.

Winemaking is full of variables beyond control, weather being a primary example. San Diego was able to thread the needle in 2023, and the result was ideal grapes that put winemakers on track for an amazing vintage of wine. Next step is bottling. When will that happen? It’s different for everyone, but when I pressed Michael on when Los Pilares was going to be bottling, he responds with the same wry sense of humor as Coleman: “We typically bottle after a lot of arguing about if it’s time to bottle.”

» lospilareswine.com

» jbrix.com

» sandiegowineries.org