Chasing grape season
Why we wait for the last two weeks of harvest.
Most grape juice is pressed early, when the fruit is firm and the sugar is predictable. We do the opposite. Grape Storm is pressed from the last two weeks of harvest, when the skins have started to soften and the flavor turns dark and jammy.
The trade-off is risk. A late rain can split the fruit, and one bad week means a smaller batch. We take that risk because the difference in the glass is not subtle: early grapes taste like candy, late grapes taste like grapes.
Our flavor team spends September driving between vineyards with a refractometer and a notebook, tasting rows, marking blocks, and calling the press house the moment a block is ready. It is the least efficient way to make a soda and the only way to make this one.
