This Week in the Vineyard 2

Woo Hoo! More Red Berries!

We have been sitting above the fog the last couple days and it even got up to 89 degrees yesterday (rare this year) so my grapes are beginning the ripening process. There has been a really big difference in the red to green berry ratio just in the last two days. You can almost watch them change color. They still have a long way to go - no color at all in the Cab Franc or Petit Verdot and the Merlot and Malbec are pretty slow but that Cabernet is speeding right along and making me happy. Other than waiting for grapes to turn red we have been doing some more leafing in shady, vigorous blocks. Next week we will start to crop thin. Unfortunately, I will probably end up dropping more crop this year than I anticipated at the beginning of the season. My vines are not over cropped. However, because this year is so late I am afraid of not being able to ripen the grapes before unsettled weather comes in the fall. If I leave a good amount of fruit on the vines I run the risk of it not being able to fully ripen. If this were two weeks ago I wouldn't worry about it and I probably would not drop very much. In a normal year we would have no problem ripening our small crop. This year is not normal. Its funny though, farmers are all complaining about what a crazy year this is, but I kind of feel like we say that almost every year. Here's to never having a normal year - how boring would that be.