Harvest Highlight: Shauna Rosenblum

Blog Post

July 2026

Harvest is nearly as notable as the pop of a cork. It’s certainly one of the highlights of the grape-to-glass process, from the anticipation of a pick to the whirlwind in the cellar. As we approach the harvest season, however, we’d like to take a closer look at all that goes into harvest. In this series of posts, we’ll highlight the harvest heroes at Ridge Vineyards: the members of our vineyard and production teams who masterfully conduct the symphony of tasks necessary to harvest the grapes from our estate and partner vineyards, then initiate the winemaking process.

Shauna Rosenblum, VP of Winemaking at Lytton Springs

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1. What was your first vintage with RIDGE? Can you recall something specific about the season you joined or what made that vintage unique?

2022 was my first vintage as winemaker with RIDGE vineyards. The summer was moderate and even. We began picking on August 17^th and picked a steady stream of fruit each day. Winemakers are all amateur meteorologists during harvest, obsessing over various weather applications and services to try and piece together an accurate forecast. At the end of August, all the weather stations were predicting 117 degrees on September 5^th. First we were in denial, and hoped/anticipated that this prediction would blow over. The prediction stayed and we realized it was time to take action.

We amped up our picking requests and picked everything that we knew would not withstand that heat…aka all zinfandel. Our petite sirah stayed on the vine through the heat dome which did show up in earnest, and stayed for an entire week. Grapevines shut down around 95 degrees, but 117 is so hot, we don’t have a ton of data as to what happens at that temperature other than getting fried. So, the petite sirah vines sat through the heat, and when we checked on them after the heat dome was over, they were unscathed. I was shocked. I gained an enormous amount more respect for petite sirah as a varietal, and also became convinced that our petite sirah vines planted at Lytton West are the correct vines planted in the correct place.

2. Please briefly describe your role leading up to and through the harvest season.

All the everything. This changes every year depending on how large the previous vintage was. The 2025 vintage was quite large with yields 20% above average. As a result, we have 20% more wine to care for. At Lytton Springs, we are finishing up bottling on the rest of the 2024 wines and some early bottling of 2025 wines like our Sandy Lane Carignane and Blasi Zinfandel. 

We are finishing racking up our previous vintage wines to tank. Running chemistry tests, adjusting so2 levels and putting the babies back to barrel to rest while we harvest the 2026 vintage. Simultaneously, we are bringing out and cleaning all the crush equipment. Pre-harvest maintenance is done on all three presses, the crusher, the must pump, and all the air and impeller pumps. We also service the generators and all the systems on which we rely to power the winery.

Michael Bairdsmith, Mauro Maldonado and I spend a lot of time in vineyards starting at the beginning of July. We have our estate vineyards, Lytton East and West, which are about 150 acres of planted grapes. We are assessing each block in Lytton Springs and creating game plans for which blocks we will target for rose. We are visiting the 20+ grower vineyards and assessing the crop load, canopy management and how quickly we think a crop could move (accumulate sugar) in the heat.

Then it is time to start grape sampling. Our interns are bringing in grape samples every single day. Lauren Garcia, our Enologist, starts analyzing grapes for brix, pH and TA which gives us a picture of where the fruit is currently, and awe can begin to assess trajectory of ripening by looking at samples firm the same vineyards week after week. Once we see the lab samples approaching  21-22 brix , Michael and I are walking through vineyards every morning tasting grapes. We work with lots of old field blends, so assessing ripeness is more of an art than a science. When we are tasting for ripeness, we are looking for soft grapes skins, pulp that pulls away from the seed, and crunchy brown seeds. We can have other markers of ripeness, but if the seed in the grape is still green, the grapes have not reached peak maturity. When grapes are perfectly ripe, they are delicious, and sweet, and the brown crunchy seeds taste like graham crackers. That means sugar accumulation is over, the vine is no longer communicating with the fruit, and it is time to pick. Any ripeness accumulated after this time is just dehydration, not actual sugar accumulation.

I text our Harvest group chat and request a block to be picked. The fruit is picked in the middle of the night and arrives at the winery by 6am, nice and cold. We crush the fruit into tank and turn the heater on the tank. We do all native fermentations, so we can only kick off fermentation using heat and air. Vigorous aeration 2x daily at the beginning helps the native yeast populate in the tank. Then we monitor fermentations that are active. Michael and I taste through all the tanks and make sure every tank is having a happy, healthy fermentation. If we have a tank that has not started fermenting yet, we will take some must from an actively fermenting tank and add some to the sluggish tank to give it a boost. Once we taste through the tanks, we go out the next block approaching ripeness and rinse, wash, repeat this process until all the grapes are harvested. Sometimes that is six weeks, sometimes that is three months. You can’t rush mother nature; she’s in charge.

3. What’s one of your favorite vineyards to visit this time of year and why?

Walking through Lytton Springs at sunrise is pure magic. Check my Instagram, I’ll post many lovely sunrises throughout the season. I’m pretty easy to find on Instagram: @Shauna_Rosenblum

4. Do you have any rituals to kick off, endure, or wrap up the season?

Because we work 7 days per week during harvest, we very often do not know what day it is. It doesn’t matter what day it is, we wake up and come make wine. So, we have a ritual to help us remember what day it is. Monday is egg day. Not leg day. Egg day. We hard-boil two dozen eggs every Monday and put them in the fridge for a good walk-by protein snack. By doing this ritual every Monday, we know when the eggs were boiled, and it resets the week. It has become the way we all tell time during harvest.

5. What’s one aspect of your role/department that you are proud to have developed in your tenure at RIDGE?

I’m so proud of the cellar crew. We have an outstanding group of humans making the wine at Lytton Springs. It is a really good group that genuinely cares for each other, and I think that love and care are reflected in the wine we make. 

Something that has brought a lot of joy, learning, and camaraderie is our Friday tasting group, The Friday Humbling. Every Friday, except during harvest, we have a blind tasting group that meets. This group is comprised of vineyard, cellar, tasting room, and any random guests that show up that week. Everyone brings a bottle of wine from anywhere in the world. The wines are in black bags, and we taste through and discuss where we think the wine is from, what we think the varietal might be, and on occasion, we can discern a producer. We have learned so much from the consistent blind tasting. Everyone’s palates have gotten pretty impressive, and we’ve discovered some fun wines we may not have otherwise tasted. We had a cabernet sauvignon blanc form China that knocked our socks off. 100% of us thought it was New Zealand sauvignon blanc. The gal who brought it told us to expand our minds. Other current obsessions include carricante, aligoté, white tempranillo, and gamay.

6. What do you hope for this 2026 harvest?

I hope for moderate weather, allowing the fruit to ripen slowly and develop deep flavors. I hope for predictable weather patterns. I hope for great health and abundant energy for all the wonderful people involved in this beautiful process. We’ll see you on the other side.