The 2026 Vintage On Red Mountain: A Living History
Welcome to the "biography" of our 2026 Red Mountain Estate vintage.
At Frichette, we believe that the best way to appreciate a bottle of wine is to understand the journey it took to get there—from the first winter snip to the final autumn crush. This year, we’re doing something a little different. Instead of a single recap, we are transforming this post into a living document.
As the season unfolds here on Red Mountain, we will be updating this page in real-time with photos, weather data, and field notes directly from our estate vineyard. Bookmark this link and follow along with us as we navigate the wind, the heat, and the magic of the 2026 growing season.
Chapter 1: The foundation of it all—Winter Pruning.
We joke that we had Fall, all winter long. It was a very mild winter without any significant freeze event thus the threat of winter damage was non-existent. One benefit of a warmer winter is we can get into the vineyard to prune without battling chilly, windy temperatures.
February 26th, 2026 - Pre Pruning the Frichette Estate Vineyard on Red Mountain
After winter, we enter the vineyard for pruning. This year, we began pruning on February 26, 2026. Here's the before pic.
We entered the vineyard for the first step of pruning with the mechanical pre-pruner. Think of mechanical pre-pruning as the "heavy lifting" phase of vineyard maintenance. It’s a tractor-mounted shortcut that clears out the bulk of last year’s growth, leaving just the essentials for your hand-pruners to finish off.
Chapter 2: Bud Break on Red Mountain: April 6, 2026
The Significance of Bud Break (April 6, 2026)
The Clock Starts: Bud break determines the "biological calendar" for the year. Since Red Mountain is one of the warmest AVAs in Washington, an early April bud break typically sets you up for a long, consistent ripening window—crucial for those big, structured Cabernets you’re known for. This is fantastic for our site because we're at a lower elevation on Red Mountain and we typically pick mid-late October. Sooner we get started, the sooner we can pick and not be forced to pick due to an early freeze event.
Vulnerability: This is the most fragile moment in the vineyard. These tiny green shoots are about 90% water; a single frost event now could damage the primary buds, forcing the vine to rely on "secondary buds" which typically produce much less fruit. As of April 20, there has not been a frost event that for 10 day forecast shows not threat. We're in the clear!
Energy Shift: The vine has officially "woken up." Sap is flowing, and the root system is now actively pulling nutrients from the Red Mountain soil to fuel rapid shoot growth (which can reach an inch a day!).
Chapter 3: Shoot Thinning: Early May
Why Shoot Thinning is Essential for Red Mountain Wine Quality
When you think of premium Red Mountain wine, you think of power, rich structure, and intense fruit concentration. But those bold characteristics don’t happen by accident—they are sculpted right now in the vineyard through shoot thinning. The ideal time to shoot thin our estate vines runs from the end of April through the middle of May, a critical window where we manually select the best growth on each vine. On Red Mountain, where the intense South Eastern Washington sun and desert heat provide massive growing power, our estate vines can easily overproduce. If left unchecked, too many shoots create a dense, chaotic canopy that starves the developing grapes of airflow and sunlight.
By aggressively removing secondary, non-fruit-bearing shoots, we achieve the perfect crop-to-canopy balance. This precision vineyard management opens up the vine architecture, ensuring that every cluster of our signature Bordeaux varietals receives optimal early-season sun exposure and critical breeze to prevent mildew. More importantly, shoot thinning forces the vine to stop wasting energy on excess leaves and instead channel all its nutrient-rich resources from our unique soils into a targeted, optimal number of grape clusters. Ultimately, this meticulous hand-work is the secret behind the uniform ripening and deeply concentrated flavor profiles that make Washington State wine from the Red Mountain AVA world-class.
Wine truly is living history in a bottle. Just like cultivating a delicate dendrobium nobile, capturing Red Mountain's unique terroir takes incredible patience, weather, and passion. Can’t wait to taste how this beautiful season unfolds in the glass!
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The weather log paired with vine responses is what turns this into an actual story rather than a harvest summary. If that context carries through to bottling, it changes what you taste in the glass, at least for me.
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Tracking the season like a biography makes sense—I could see an estate using that narrative when they talk through barrel samples with buyers. Writing down weather events next to vine behavior might make those final blend choices less abstract and more accountable.
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This makes me want to keep a running journal for our small block next season — noting the odd cool snap and how each row’s ripeness actually differed. That kind of detail would be a real guide when we decide what to keep as a single lot versus blend.
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