World Class, from Grape-to-Glass.
Every bottle of wine carries a year on its label. For some wines, that number is mostly administrative—a way to track inventory, distinguish one release from another. But for wines grown in places like Sebastopol Hills, that vintage year tells a story. It’s a record of weather patterns, farming decisions, and the particular character that nature bestowed on the grapes that season.
Understanding vintage isn’t about memorizing which years were “good” and which were “bad”—that framing misses the point entirely. It’s about appreciating how place and time combine to create wines that could only exist in that specific moment. It’s about recognizing that variation isn’t a flaw to be engineered away but a feature that makes wine endlessly fascinating.
For those of us who farm and make wine in Sebastopol Hills, vintage variation is the daily reality of our work. Each year presents a different puzzle, a different conversation with the land. Here’s what that actually means—and why it matters for the wines in your glass.
What “Vintage” Actually Means
At its simplest, vintage refers to the year the grapes were harvested. A 2022 Pinot Noir was made from grapes picked in the fall of 2022, then aged in barrel and bottle before release.
But vintage represents something more profound: it captures the entire growing season in a single number. From the moment vines wake from winter dormancy through the final days before harvest, every weather event, every temperature swing, every foggy morning and sunny afternoon leaves its mark on the grapes—and ultimately, on the wine.
Think of it this way: the vineyard is the same, the winemaker is the same, the techniques are largely consistent. Yet the 2021 tastes different from the 2022, which tastes different from the 2023. That difference is vintage—the imprint of a particular year on a particular place.
The Climate of Sebastopol Hills: Why Vintage Matters Here
Not all wine regions experience vintage variation equally. In some climates, conditions are so consistent year after year that wines from different vintages taste remarkably similar. Sebastopol Hills is not one of those places.
Our corner of Sonoma County sits in what’s called a “cool climate” wine region—though that term undersells the complexity. We’re positioned where Pacific Ocean influence meets California sunshine, creating a dynamic tension that plays out differently each year.
The Fog Factor
Morning fog is a common companion in Sebastopol Hills—but “constant” doesn’t mean “consistent.” Some summers, fog rolls in thick and lingers until noon. Other years, it burns off by 10 AM. This variation profoundly affects how grapes ripen.
Heavy fog years produce grapes that ripen slowly, retaining bright acidity and developing complex flavors over an extended hang time. The wines tend toward elegance, with red fruit notes and a certain nervousness—energy in the glass.
Lighter fog years allow more direct sunlight, accelerating ripening. These vintages often yield wines with darker fruit character, richer texture, and softer acidity. Neither style is better—they’re simply different expressions of the same vineyard.
Temperature Swings
Sebastopol Hills experiences significant diurnal variation—the difference between daytime highs and nighttime lows. On a typical summer day, temperatures might reach 85°F in the afternoon and drop to 50°F overnight.
This swing matters enormously for Pinot Noir. Warm days allow sugars to develop and flavors to concentrate. Cool nights preserve acidity—that bright, fresh quality that keeps wine lively and age-worthy. The balance between these forces varies by vintage, shaping the final wine’s structure.
Years with extreme heat spikes can stress vines into shutdown, pausing ripening until conditions moderate. Years with unusually cool summers may extend harvest into November. Each scenario produces distinctive wines.
Rainfall Patterns
California’s Mediterranean climate means rain falls primarily in winter, with dry summers. But “primarily” leaves room for significant variation.
Wet winters recharge groundwater, giving vines deep reserves to draw from during summer. Drought years force vines to struggle, often concentrating flavors in smaller berries but also stressing the plants. Rare late-spring rains can disrupt flowering, reducing crop size. Early fall rains near harvest create urgent picking decisions.
Each pattern leaves its signature on the vintage.
The Growing Season: A Year in the Vineyard
To understand vintage variation, it helps to understand what happens in the vineyard throughout the year—and how weather at each stage affects the final wine.
Bud Break (March-April)
After winter dormancy, vines awaken when soil temperatures warm sufficiently. Tiny buds swell and eventually burst, sending out the first tender shoots of the season.
The timing of bud break sets the clock for the entire vintage. Early bud break (warm spring) means a longer growing season but increased frost risk—those tender shoots are vulnerable to cold snaps. Late bud break (cool spring) compresses the season, potentially rushing harvest decisions in fall.
In Sebastopol Hills, frost protection remains a concern well into spring. Cold air settles into our valleys, and a single freezing night can damage emerging buds. Vintages that escape frost damage start with a full crop potential; those that don’t may yield smaller quantities of more concentrated fruit.
Flowering (May-June)
The grape flowers that emerge in late spring are tiny and easily overlooked—but this period largely determines crop size. Successful pollination leads to fruit set; disrupted flowering means fewer berries per cluster.
Weather during flowering is critical. Cold, rainy, or windy conditions interfere with pollination. Warm, calm weather allows maximum fruit set. The difference can mean a 30% swing in potential crop—visible months later at harvest.
Pinot Noir is particularly sensitive during this window. Our coastal climate makes flowering a nervous time for growers, watching forecasts and hoping for cooperation from nature.
Véraison (July-August)
Véraison—the French term for the onset of ripening—marks the moment green grapes begin changing color. For Pinot Noir, this means shifting from hard green berries to soft purple ones, cluster by cluster, sometimes berry by berry.
The evenness of véraison tells a story. Uniform color change across the vineyard suggests consistent conditions and vine health. Uneven véraison—some clusters far ahead of others—indicates stress or variation that will require sorting decisions at harvest.
From véraison forward, the countdown to harvest begins. The pace depends entirely on weather—heat accelerates ripening, cool conditions slow it. Some vintages sprint from véraison to harvest in six weeks; others meander for three months.
Harvest (September-November)
Harvest timing is the culmination of every decision and weather event throughout the year. The goal: pick grapes at the moment when sugar, acid, and flavor development align—a moving target that requires daily tasting, testing, and intuition.
In Sebastopol Hills, harvest typically begins in mid-September and can extend through November for late-ripening blocks. The window matters: pick too early and wines lack depth; pick too late and they lose freshness. Weather forecasts become obsessions as winemakers balance ideal ripeness against incoming rain or heat.
The harvest date itself becomes part of vintage character. Early-harvest years tend toward brighter, more energetic wines. Late-harvest years often show more richness and complexity. Neither is inherently superior—they’re different interpretations of the same place.
How Winemakers Respond to Vintage Variation
Here’s where philosophy enters the picture. Faced with vintage variation, winemakers have choices about how much to intervene.
The Interventionist Approach
Some winemakers aim for consistency above all else. Using techniques like acidification, de-acidification, extended maceration, micro-oxygenation, and careful blending, they can minimize vintage differences, producing wines that taste similar year after year.
This approach has its place—particularly for large-production wines where brand consistency matters to consumers who want the same flavor profile every time they purchase.
The Expressive Approach
Other winemakers—and this is our philosophy at Kanzler—view vintage variation as something to honor rather than erase. The goal isn’t consistency; it’s authenticity. Each vintage should taste like that year in that vineyard, with all its particular character intact.
This doesn’t mean abandoning technique. It means using technique to clarify rather than obscure what the vintage provided. We still make countless decisions in the cellar—about fermentation temperatures, pressing timing, barrel selection, aging duration. But those decisions aim to express the vintage, not override it.
The result: wines that reward attention. Tasting through multiple vintages of the same wine becomes a journey through different years, different weather patterns, different expressions of the same place.
Reading Vintage in Your Glass
Once you start paying attention to vintage, you’ll notice differences you might have previously attributed to imagination. Here’s what to look for:
Color
Pinot Noir’s color varies significantly by vintage. Cooler years tend to produce lighter, more translucent wines—ruby rather than garnet. Warmer years yield deeper, more saturated colors. Neither indicates quality; both simply reflect conditions.
Hold your glass against a white background. The depth and hue offer your first clue about the vintage character before you even smell the wine.
Aromatics
Cool vintage Pinot Noir often shows red fruit aromatics—fresh cherry, raspberry, cranberry—along with floral notes and sometimes an almost herbal quality. Warm vintage wines lean toward darker fruits—plum, blackberry, black cherry—with earthier, spicier undertones.
Swirl your glass and take your time with the nose. The aromatic profile often reveals vintage character more clearly than any other element.
Structure
Structure refers to how the wine feels in your mouth—the interplay of acidity, tannin, alcohol, and body. Cool vintages typically show higher acidity, giving wines a lifted, energetic quality. Warm vintages may have softer acidity but richer texture and slightly higher alcohol.
Neither structure is objectively better. Some dishes pair beautifully with bright, high-acid wines; others want the richness of a warmer year. Understanding vintage helps you match wines to moments.
Aging Potential
Vintage affects how wines evolve over time. Higher-acid vintages often age longer, their structure preserving freshness for decades. Riper vintages may show beautifully young but evolve more quickly.
For collectors, this matters. A cellar benefits from vintage diversity—some wines to drink now, others to hold, all offering different expressions as they mature.
Beyond “Good” and “Bad” Vintages
Wine publications love ranking vintages—87 points for this year, 98 points for that. These ratings have some utility for broad strokes, but use them as a guide, not gospel.
A “mediocre” vintage for one region may be excellent for another. A difficult year that reduced yields might produce intensely concentrated wines that later become collector favorites. An “exceptional” year might yield technically sound but somewhat boring wines.
More importantly, the good/bad framing assumes every wine should taste a certain way, and deviations are defects. For those who value authenticity and expression, the “difficult” vintages can be the most interesting—wines with stories to tell, character forged through challenge.
Our advice: taste widely across vintages. Develop your own preferences rather than relying on ratings. You may discover that your palate loves what critics dismissed.
Vintage at Kanzler Vineyards
As estate growers, we experience vintage variation viscerally. We walk our vineyard blocks throughout the year, watching weather shape the fruit, making decisions in response to what each season presents.
Our 20 acres of Pinot Noir vines occupy multiple exposures and elevations within Sebastopol Hills. Some blocks catch morning sun earlier; others hold fog longer. This diversity means vintage affects different parts of our estate differently—giving us options when crafting each year’s wines.
H3: Our Winemaking Philosophy
We believe our job is to grow the best grapes possible and then get out of the way. Thoughtful farming—sustainable practices, careful canopy management, selective harvesting—gives us exceptional raw material. Patient, minimalist winemaking lets that material speak.
This means our wines show vintage character clearly. Taste our 2021 against our 2022, and you’ll experience two different years in Sebastopol Hills—both recognizably from our estate, both unmistakably Kanzler, yet each with its own personality.
We find this endlessly interesting—and we hope you do too.
Experiencing Vintage Firsthand
The best way to understand vintage variation isn’t reading about it—it’s tasting it. When you visit our estate for a tasting, you’ll experience wines from different vintages, often including library selections that reveal how our wines evolve over time.
Our hosts love discussing vintage character—what the weather did that year, how we responded in vineyard and cellar, what makes each wine distinctive. These conversations transform abstract concepts into tangible experience.
For wine club members, access to multiple vintages becomes part of the journey. Allocations often include current releases alongside library wines, building collections that span years and styles.
Why This Matters
In an age of industrial consistency—where you can buy the same product anywhere in the world and expect identical results—wine offers something increasingly rare: genuine variation tied to place and time.
Understanding vintage connects you to the agricultural reality behind every bottle. That wine didn’t appear from nowhere; it came from specific vines, in a specific place, during a specific year. People farmed those vines through whatever weather arrived. Decisions were made under pressure and uncertainty. The result is unique and unrepeatable.
This connection—between what’s in your glass and the year it represents—transforms wine from beverage to story. Every vintage has one, and learning to read those stories deepens the pleasure of drinking.
For us at Kanzler, vintage is the rhythm of our lives. Spring anxiety about frost. Summer attention to ripening. Fall intensity of harvest. Winter reflection and planning. Each year brings challenges and rewards, failures and triumphs—all captured, ultimately, in the wines we share.
The number on the label isn’t just a date. It’s an invitation to taste a year in Sebastopol Hills, as experienced by one family on one vineyard in one very specific place.
Ready to explore vintage for yourself? Book a tasting at Kanzler Vineyards and experience multiple vintages of our estate wines, guided by hosts who can share the story behind each year. Or join our wine club for ongoing access to current releases and library selections that build your understanding of how our wines evolve.
At Kanzler Vineyards, every vintage tells a story. We’d love to share those stories with you.