The Big Picture

If you’re like me, you’re a little nervous about all this rain lately.  While my lawn is happy, I keep wondering about our little round friends in the fields (sic) grapes.  As a consumer and not a farmer, I get anxious that my supply of premium wine might be affected.

I’ve been asking the winemakers for their take on this season.  By and large no one is panicking.  That doesn’t mean that this has been an ideal season though.  Summer never seemed to want to start.  That put the whole cycle back two weeks according to most winemakers.  And as timing is everything regarding harvest, those two weeks mater a lot.

Many vintners have dropped fruit, ie. cut off bunches of grapes to fall on the ground; lost forever.  This allows the remaining fruit to ripen faster before it’s just too late.  Other tricks are to cut back the canopy (leaves) to allow more sunshine in. 

Turns out the rain has not been the problem.  It’s that the sun doesn’t shine when it’s overcast or raining.  The bottom line is getting enough sunshine to ripen the grapes.  Every vintners seeks a perfect balance between ripeness (sugar) and acid.  Over-ripe and you get all fruit ( a sour and tannic wine); under-ripe and the wine is green or acidic.

Now here’s where dry-farming comes in handy.  Because the vines that are dry-farmed have to reach deeper in the ground for moisture,when it rains a little, this water never reaches the roots.  If it rains too much then the vine could take up water and burst the grape skins: Bad!  Or the grapes could start to rot on the vine: again,Bad!  Good thing most of our vineyards in the Umpqua Valley are dry-farmed!

Just when you think you’ve covered all your bases, along come the birds.  While you and I see nice tidy rows of vines, the birds see: Lunch.  One report is the lose of a whole variety of early ripening grapes to the birds.  You just wake up one morning and your crop is gone!