Grapes Looking Good

The articles keep coming in professing the same things: a bigger and later harvest thanlast year, the grapes are undergoing verasion, and weather for the rest of the year is critical to maintain high quality.

According to Patricia Henley's Sonoma News article, Grape crop looks good,

Veraison has just begun for early-ripening grape varieties in the Valley's warmer regions, and is about two to 2-1/2 weeks later than last year, said Ned Hill, president of the Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers Alliance.

Although it was a relatively warm winter, the rest of the growing season has been colder and windier than most growers would like.

"It's been a terrible wind year. In a couple of spots down in the Carneros (region), they have had quite a few times when they have had gusts of up to 40 miles per hour ... The average temperature so far this year has only been 55 degrees. Last year it was 59 degrees," Hill said. "Over the period of a whole growing season, it (makes a difference) when you look at it cumulatively."

However, so far the grapes look good, he said.

"The crop (size) is average to maybe a bit above average depending on the block. The bunch count is high, but the bunches are small and the berries tend to be a little small."

The small berries and bunch count mean winemakers will get good flavors out of them, Hill said, because the juice-to-skin ratio will be high, and grape skins contribute to the flavor of the wine.

"If you have a real big berry, there's more juice in the berry compared to the skin surface," Hill said. "With a small berry, you get more skin per juice, which tends to give better flavor."

The worry about powdery mildew caused by moisture is pretty much past, Hill said, and now growers are hoping for a long stretch of moderately warm days, with temperatures in the mid-80s, so the grapes ripen slowly but steadily.

"The higher the temperature, the more stress it puts on the vine," said Chris Bowen, vineyard manager for Robert Hunter Winery. "When you get (temperatures) over the mid-90s, that's not the best thing for the vines. They just stress and dehydrate. Once they've softened up, they'll dehydrate rather than ripen."

Bowen said that in general the vines came through the recent heat spell fairly well.

"At this point, I would say things look pretty good," Bowen said. "I don't think it's going to be an early start to harvest - maybe a little bit later than last year."

Hill agreed, saying that the growers' big concern is if it stays cold and windy, harvest could be really late this year.

"You want hang time and you want a nice, prolonged ripening period, but when you start getting near the end of October, you start worrying about rain," Hill said.