HARPERSFIELD — About four months ago, Gene Sigel looked out over his fledgling vineyard of chardonnay and saw the ground white with frost.

Sigel, owner of South River Vineyard, says the vines were spared, however, although other sections of his and his neighbors’ vineyards suffered extensive damage from the nocturnal cold snap.

At 7 a.m. Wednesday, just as the orange sun was portending another day of 94 degree weather in Harpersfield Township, a half-dozen pickers began clipping fat bunches of light-green chardonnay grapes from the vineyard, which once glistened with frost. What a difference 112 days of warm, dry weather can make.

“Typically, we would be harvesting chardonnay the first week in October,” said Sigel as he stopped by the vineyard to check the progress.

Across the county’s vineyards, fruit spared the devastation of the May frost is racing toward maturation and perfection. Tony Debevc, owner of Chalet DeBonné Vineyard in Madison, plans to start harvesting Tuesday, about two weeks earlier than usual and three weeks ahead of 2009. He said the fruit is exhibiting excellent balance: Sugar is high, and the pH is in an ideal range.

“The chardonnay’s sugar is at 23.5 brix. That’s the kind of reading you get in California for a chardonnay,” Sigel says.

Winemakers can adjust the chemistry and fermentation process to compensate for deficiencies in the fruit caused by imperfect growing seasons, but Sigel says it’s always best to get it right in the vineyard.

“If we can’t make good wine this season, we’ll never be able to make good wine,” Sigel says.

Sigel and Debevc say they are particularly excited about the quality of the “reds,” notoriously challenging varieties to grow in northeast Ohio — but not this year. The abundant sunshine and hot temperatures, more like a California summer than Ohio, have put the reds on track for their best year since 1988, said Debevc.

“This is an excellent year for reds,” Debevc said. “Good color, a lot of complexity, good tannins.”

Wine drinkers will not be able to test Debevc’s claim until late next year, at the earliest. However, the blend that South River Vineyard will craft with the chardonnay harvested Wednesday, called Creation, will be bottled in the late spring of 2011. The wine uses several varieties that originated in France, went through a rigorous USDA quarantine and which Sigel selected for the new vineyard he planted on the former Joe and Lenora Gruber property in 2008. They include chardonnay clone 809 and a small 2006 planting of sémillon and several others previously foreign to northeast Ohio.

For Sigel, seeing these vines produce in our uncertain climate is an especially rewarding sight. Part of the credit goes to Sigel’s selection of land for this vineyard: The Gruber property is said to be the best location for a vineyard in Ashtabula County. Sigel says Gruber told him that in his 50 years of growing grapes, he never had had a frost on this portion of his vineyard. After Sigel purchased the land, he bulldozed the rolling hills and filled in some of the depressions and then worried that his alterations would affect the drainage of cold air from the land negatively. The season’s harvest is, therefore, an affirmation of his decision making, from the selection of clonal varieties and land to the management techniques he has employed since preparing the land five years ago.

Sigel plans to press his chardonnay on Friday. Because the fruit was hand-picked, there is minimal damage to the berries, and he can delay pressing for a longer period. Hand picking, by its very nature, requires more lead time in order to acquire the 6 to 10 tons necessary to fire up the press.

In future harvests, Sigel probably will pick the chardonnay mechanically, but this year, the first one of significant production from the young vines, he elected the more labor-intensive approach because a portion of the crop grew outside the part of the vines which the mechanical picker can reach.

Sigel said the early harvest, while a blessing for the vineyard managers, could be a headache for the winemakers as the fruit will be coming into the cellars fast and furious this season. Between the two vineyards, he will oversee the harvesting of 25 different varieties. Normally, they would be brought in consecutively, but this year’s conditions will require simultaneous harvesting.

Debevc said the warm weather also has turned the tables on his juice house operation, which sells juice to home winemakers. Normally, he opens with California juices. This year, when the juice house opens Sept. 11, it will be with local juices. The California ones won’t arrive until around Sept. 20, he said.

“We’ve almost had West Coast conditions this year,” he said.