10/06/2026
The night of Sunday October 4th, La Cuadrilla harvested 981 pounds from the Mother Vine. These tiny clusters should combine to make just enough w**e to fill a barrel. For the first time in 2026, we will have one barrel full of w**e from one vine.
The crew made a pass through the top of the surrounding Great Places August James Stolpman block back on September 21. We picked the fruit from the lower vines prior to tackling the 1,200 interconnected heads of mama Sunday night. The 2026 Great Places August James Syrah will likely be focused on the barrels fermented from the earlier top pick, but some riper “bottom” barrels might make it into the blend. The mother vine will certainly be differentiated as it was solely picked at the later, riper date. On the w**emaking front, the first top pick fermented 40% whole cluster while the bottom and Mama will have the fruit purity and density of 100% de stemmed fermentation.
For anyone not familiar with the Mother Vine, she started as just one lone cutting in the middle of an empty half acre hill back in early 2013. She grew three shoots, and the following winter, each shoot was tucked down a shallow trench and then trained up an adjacent post, giving three connected daughter heads to mama. We repeated the “layering” process each subsequent winter expanding her reach by creating a new generation of heads on her periphery.
In her 14th year we will finally be able to taste the expression of the Mother Vine alone, as in the past we have blended her fruit into the greater August James cuvée.
We will be sure to keep everyone posted after fermentation and hopefully, if the w**e is magic, we will have just shy of 300 bottles of Mother Vine W**e to share in the years to come!
