From the Fields: J.P. Beall, ​​​​​​​San Bernardino County citrus and winegrape grower

By J.P. Beall
San Bernardino County citrus and winegrape grower

The season’s gone well. We harvested our winegrapes a couple months ago. I manage a smaller vineyard of about 700 vines for one customer, and we got that crop sold to a winery at above market average prices. The yield was good, and we got large berries. We had some heat in the summer, but it was cooler than summers can be in our area, which helped us. We had some rare, nonstandard varieties, which also helped. The wine is already coming in very nicely.

There’s another vineyard I also help manage, about 800 vines. That was a little more challenging to place in the market, but we did get it done. Again, we saw good berry size, and people were surprised to see the acidity hold up as well as it did because we’re a hotter climate. The fruit we grow here produces high sugar levels, so that’s always a balancing act when it comes to wine.

In terms of citrus, we’re in the thick of things. Our groves are just getting to the point of ripeness. There are also some specialty citrus varieties we work with, and we’ve been working with local restaurants to build tasting experiences and menus around those items and the flavor profiles they produce. In the Redlands area, what we say is warm days and cool nights. The temperature variability in our microclimates produces oranges that are sweeter and more complex. Fruit grown here reaches high sugar levels, and this is the sort of winter we want.

We’ve been remarking since the fall how large the fruit looks compared to past seasons. Typically, we work with older trees, which don’t necessarily put out large fruit but do put out really flavorful fruit. This season, we’ve seen good results on fruit size. Lots of water has helped, though we’ve seen skin split in areas where people haven’t been careful. We’re looking forward to seeing how high we get on our sweetness readings this year.