You know the grapes are getting ripe when...

The boars start sampling them!  I found this example of the boars having a tasty treat up in our Syrah vineyard on Tuesday evening.  (See how the grapes are missing on the end of this bunch?) In some areas people have big problems with boars eating the ripening grapes,  luckily for us, our vineyards are located in an area where there are acres and acres of vineyards covering the hillside, thus giving them a large choice of delicious grapes in various stages of ripeness.  (I think that's a run-on sentence.)

Something else kind of interesting , the existance of several white grape vines inter-planted with the grenache in our biggest vineyard.  I have no idea what varietal it is, probably grenache blanc, but it's fun to come upon one and taste the grapes.  We just put them right in with the red ones during harvest. The percentage of the white grapes is so small it won't make any difference and it maybe even  adds a little something.  It used to be common practice to plant up to 10% white grapes among the reds, adding more aromatic flavors to the red. Some people still do it in Côte Rôtie and Hermitage.  We even thought about replacing some of the vines that are dead in the vineyard with some marsanne or roussanne, or some other southern Rhône white varietal. I will have to do more research on that though....

Comments

[Fritz Krieger]

Well, that post was not BOARing....

Hope all is well.

[Iris]

At Lisson, we are of those people, who have enormous problems with wild boars (and badgers, and...): they all love our grapes and our vineyard is the only one on a hillside in the middle of the woods. After having been away for one week, I will climb up in the wines and see, if they have decided that Pinot and Merlot are already ripe enough for them...

In our region (Herault), vineyards were "complantés" too: there were always some white grapes among the red ones - it's at least a nice thing to see, when you're walking through the vineyard.

[Terry Hughes]

Amy, it's funny you should mention the boars. We were in Chianti recently, at Le Fonti, and the owner was showing us his best vineyard (a cru in fact), where the boars had been having a high old time tearing off bunches of ripening sangiovese and leaving deep holes in the spaces between the vines.

The owner wasn't too upset, maybe because he thought the boars were saving him the time and expense of thinning out the grapes. Dunno...

Anyhow, it all adds to the romance of the wine, as important as anything else in establishing a market for it, non? Courage, ma fille!