With a distinctive autumnal chill in the air and the grounds festively festooned with pumpkins and gourds, the team at Testarossa Winery welcomed visitors to their annual blessing of the grapes earlier this month at the Novitiate in Los Gatos.

In attendance were well over a dozen members of the priesthood who had once worked at the oldest winery in Los Gatos, constructed in 1888 as way to generate funds for the Jesuit seminary college built on the property the same year. The Jesuits operated a winery here until 1986, after which it was leased to other brands until 1997, when Testarossa moved in and when this particular annual blessing began.

Testarossa proprietor Rob Jensen was quick to point out that this was the 136th harvest these old stone walls had witnessed. This year was particularly special, he said, because it happened to be his wife Diana’s birthday, and her mother, along with their daughter, were in attendance. Then Jensen consulted his watch, looked around the crowd, and declared, “If we gather here at 6 o’clock, the tradition is to have 6 ounces of wine, but if we gather at noon, then we have 12. So, let’s begin!”

Fr. Peter Pabst did the honors, asking for blessings to be bestowed on everyone who toils at Testarossa in all facets of the company. He generously doused the surrounding throng with holy water, giving the bin of Fogstone Pinot Noir a good sprinkle, too.

Jensen pointed to the bin of freshly blessed Fogstone pinot noir clone 777 that would ultimately go into the crusher and invited people to sample. The small clusters and relatively small berries were quite ripe, with very brown and crunchy seeds—just what winemaker Bill Brosseau was looking for.

“We practice deficit irrigation at this site to concentrate the fruit,” Brosseau said in an interview.

The Fogstone Vineyard is owned by Santa Clara University alums Carol and Bret Sisney and Gary Filizetti, who are longtime friends of the Jensens and own Devcon construction.

Last year’s annual blessing was held on Sept. 29 over a bin of ripe Fogstone chardonnay on a very warm summerlike day, when most of the grapes for the season had already come in. This year, Brosseau said they have brought in only about 20% of their expected fruit, making it one of the latest harvests in a dozen years.

The first grapes of this year’s harvest came in on Sept. 11, beautiful clusters of chardonnay from the Brosseau Family Vineyard in Chalone, owned by Bill’s parents. Testarossa has also brought in grapes from Tondre Grapefields in the Santa Lucia Highlands, and from Rincon, Rosemary’s, La Rinconada and Rancho La Vina—all vineyards to the south, in the Arroyo Grande Valley and Santa Rita Hills AVAs. They’ve also gotten quite a bit from Fogstone, and were anticipating a load of grapes from Doctor’s Vineyard later that afternoon.

“We’re hoping to get everything in before the beginning of November,” said Brosseau. “Everything should be in barrel by the beginning of December. The yields look mostly good and are up a bit from last year.”

Brosseau expects to bring in Graham Family pinot noir grapes at the end of the week, and then begin picking the bulk of the Santa Lucia Highlands fruit over the next 10 days. Fortunately, there have been no significant heat spells to put pressure on the picking or cellar crews, and the outlook is for moderate warmth through the balance of October.

After last year’s hot and harried harvest, that’s a blessing everyone can appreciate.