If "hangtime" or "extended hangtime" is a new term to you, it's because it hasn't been in use very long. It refers literally to the amount of time we allow the grapes to hang on the vine before we harvest. It's become an issue because there's been a recent trend toward leaving the grapes on the vine longer than we did in the past. It's all a natural part of our evolution and learning curve here in California.

We've been making wine in California since Father Junipero Serra planted the first grapevine here in the late 1700s. There was a thriving industry here at the turn of the 20th century. However, prohibition was so disruptive that when repeal came around in 1933 it was almost like starting over again. It's so easy to make bad wine that we became very analytically oriented and directed our efforts more toward suppressing fault than heightening the good. We had the equivalent of recipes from the University for making white vs. red wine and this is probably where California got its reputation for mediocrity.

One part of the recipe was to pick our grapes according to the percentage of sugar, which may not be added in California. Here's how it works: during fermentation, we can predict that 50-60% of the sugar will convert to alcohol, depending on the yeast (the rest converts to heat and carbon-dioxide gas). In the 1960s and 70s a common standard for red wine grapes was to harvest at 24 degrees brix, roughly 24% sugar, to end up at about 12.5 % alcohol. In some cases wineries even paid growers bonuses for delivering their grapes at a particular sugar.

As long as the weather is warm and dry the sugar goes up. Naturally, the growers wanted to get their grapes in before they risked rain damage, so these bonuses were incentives to keep them from picking too early.

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