Looks like 4 warm sunny days in a row coming up. Followed by a little rain and cooler weather. Is it common to pick warm sites 3 - 5 weeks before the cooler ones?
RT
Depends on the year. We’ve had a month plus spread from beginning to end of harvest. Also picked everything in one week. Former is more common for sure.
What kind of vineyard management efforts can slow ripening, if any?
Leaf pulling is primarily for rot control? Does more greenery and shade on the fruit delay the speed of ripening? Would it have been better to drop less fruit?
RT
About the only thing you can do to slow down ripening is irrigate and irrigate a lot. Now that is arguably good for the grapes and bad for the grapes depending on the winemaker/ viticulturist you talk to.
A larger crop could slow down ripening but not that much. Having more leaves will help retain acid because the shaded fruit could be as much as 15 F cooler. That temperature change makes a big difference this time of the year when acids are respiring and all biological reactions happen faster at higher temps. This is why diurnal temp swings are so important in quality grape growing regions.
Interesting to hear Jim. With the cool down and rain showers forecast for early/mid next week, I think if there’s a good window Thurs/Fri/Sat, that could see a big start to harvest locally. I’m excited about it.
It’s inarguably bad for the integrity of the wine.
Thought I’d update things. Harvest is in full swing and things look great, better than I expected after a warm summer. I thought brix would be higher even at lower flavor ripeness, but I’ve picked two of my four Pinot sites and flavors are ripe without high sugar or high pH. Mostly 22-23 for brix, 3.2-3.3s for pH. Very little rot, so sorting has been quick. Looking to bring in two other vineyards tomorrow morning if tonight really is spotty and/or light rain. Feeling really good if completely worn out already. Wish I were 20 years younger on days like this, and I’m only 44.
Thanks for the update Vincent. How are the stems and seeds?
RT
We’ve been picking for sparkling wine late last week and early this week. Things slowed down a bit though, the pinot is sitting around 20.5 brix with almost-there flavors. Chardonnay is right around 20.1 so it’s getting close too. I suspect we’ll be picking after next Wednesday, if the rain goes away.
We brought in some Muska Pinot today for rose as well as some young vine Pommard and Wadenswil. Very healthy but for a little wasp damage.
Maybe another week to start.
2 warm site only so far, plus some 3rd leaf stuff where the canopy (what little there was) was sort of giving up the ghost. Everything else is a bit of a ways off.
Richard, stems and seeds are mature. Did some whole cluster on the Armstrong fermenters. pHs across the board are soaking up more than expected, but acidity tastes strong. Really couldn’t be happier given the growing season.
Lots of fruit flies out there I’m hearing. Talked to a grower last Thursday who told me that it was some nefarious new species that gets out into the fields and lays its eggs in the grapes, puncturing the skins. Apparently this action is allowing acetobacter in and ruining entire clusters. I was told that some people’s vineyards smell like acetic acid. What a bummer!
Yeah, we’ve been on the lookout for the fruit flies. Probably can be accounted for by the warm, early season as can the wasp damage. We’ll get some more fruit in on wed, thurs and maybe sat. We were at Zenith today, which looks great. Next week we have 80’s forcasted which won’t bode well for botrytis after all this rain. To what extent the bunches are damaged will depend on the farming practices at individual sites.
Cheers,
Bill
Drosophila. Nasty, disgusting creatures. Perfect storm of warm, humid, early ripening in the Dundee Hills and other places. It is not fun.
They sound nasty, indeed, both in larvae and in flying form. Perhaps TMI, but for those interested, here’s some correspondence from Andy Humphrey, vineyard manager extraordinaire, to his clients yesterday about the Drosophila this year:
• Even the oldest guy I could find who has been doing this since 1969 has never seen Drosophila in the fruit like this. There are a couple of even older guys but they probably don’t remember at this point.
• They are, according to what I am hearing, now appearing everywhere regardless of AVA, Soil, Clone, Elevation etc. (Fruit flies, not the old guys)
• They seem to not be interested in white varieties — so far.
• Although you can find them in berries that were split, they seem to be targeting very tight clusters that had berries pushed off or partially pushed off the stem from previous heavy rains and berry swelling. Almost like those individual berries or groups of berries were”picked” and continued to sit there in the middle of the cluster in warm weather waiting to become food for Drosophila larvae.
• There is a reason they are called vinegar flies. They carry the yeast around with them, the berries they lay their eggs in are inoculated and begin to ferment with the WRONG yeast. Probably a symbiotic relationship between the yeast and the conditions for the larvae to thrive? The result for us however is what everyone calls “Sour Rot”. Don’t know if that is scientifically accurate but it makes sense in my world.
• There are low PHI contact sprays that will kill the adults but not the larvae or eggs.
• The eggs can hatch into larvae in 15 to 24 hours.
• There are long PHI sprays that will kill larvae & eggs, but infuse the fruit with residual pesticide. Don’t know of anyone yet who wants to do that or has actually done that.
• Conclusion, you can’t kill them unless you can see them. If you can see them they have already laid eggs for at least one cycle. If you kill the adults there is already a new batch on the way. At some point depending on various conditions, the larvae molting into adults begins to occur as soon as one week after the first cycle of eggs are laid. And then? — Again every 15 – 24 hours.
• Wineries are jumping on the schedule like flies on fruit.
Good luck up there, everyone!
Mark
My winery is still empty. Are flies super bad?
Todd,
Have seen them in my samples in the Chehalem Mountains…but unlike Andy, I’ve seen it more in Pinot Gris than Pinot Noir. My guess it is where ever the fruit is damaged…not really much to do with grape type.
Adam Lee
Siduri Wines
I saw one vineyard in placer county (California) where maybe 1 out of 2 bunches had sour rot. No mildew. I wonder if it was related to these flies. Anyone know if they have been spotted this far south?