We've been incredibly lucky this year, as opposed to seemingly the rest of France. In regions like Bordeaux, Champagne, Alsace and Burgundy, they've been getting hit with drenching rain, thunderstorms, hail and more rain. Looking over the French blogs over the past month all you see is rain, hail and mildew. In the past week things have dried out and warmed up, but it's been a long few months for everyone else. Here in the sunny south though, we got the rain we needed, and if you were on top of things mildew hardly even set in. That said, I have talked to a few vignerons that have had some serious problems with mildew, but it's definitely not wide-spread. Thank goodness this isn't our first year, or I would have been panicking! We've got a few spots of mildew in all of our vineyards, it's not a big deal as long as you stop the progression of it, which we have. Now that it's warm, there's less need to worry, mildew doesn't like heat, and boy is it hot!!! 
It's July though, and we need the heat. One more good rain between now and harvest would be nice, but as long as we can keep going like this (hot and dry) we should be in for a great year. In our vineyards, as I've said before we had a very uneven flowering and that lead to some fruit loss, but what remains is looking great, small grapes, smaller than all of our neighbors, but that should make for some really great wine! I'm getting excited just thinking about harvest. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself, we're not there yet, you never know when the skies are going to open up and rain or hail and rain some more. It's true we've been spoiled so far, besides drought and super low yields, we haven't had to deal with devastating rain or hail I take that back and am knocking on wood 100 times!! Don't want to jinx ourselves!!
The syrah has just started to turn from green to purple (does somebody know what that's called in
English?) In French it's called "veraison". This is means that the grapes will now start to produce sugar and develop more flavor as they ripen, and soon we'll be harvesting them!
Since it's so hot, we have to water the baby mourvèdre vines we planted this spring. Ugh. It's not fun. First we are going around to all of the plants and using a spade to break up the ground around the plant and make a little bowl for the water to sit in. Sounds easy right? Well, not so. The ground is like concrete, super dry and hard and there are lots of rocks in the soil, so half the time when you plant the spade you end up hitting a rock, and having no effect on the soil. It's not my favorite job... and with the heat you're standing there dripping with sweat!! Luckily Matt did a lot of the digging while I watered the vines. I have just a few rows left to finish tonight when it cools off. It's hard to motivate to go down there, especially in the evening when it's wine:30!!
One last cool picture:
Now isn't she a beauty! I was walking through the vineyard today when I felt something crawling on my shoulder, I looked down thinking it was a "cigale" (cicada) but yikes!! I'll admit I squealed and brushed her off in a panic! Then I spent the next few minutes trying to find her so that I could get a better look. Her body is at least the size of a nickel!! Amazing. Very cool to look at, but not something I want crawling on my shoulder!!
Veraison is the common term in English as well. Certainly it's the term I've always heard used here in the Mid-Atlantic. Thanks for the post! (Cool creepy-crawlie! :-)
Posted by: Tim Stephens | July 19, 2007 at 09:00 PM
Veraison - very exciting! I'm looking forward to following the progress of all the vines. Good luck and stay dry!
Posted by: Greg | July 19, 2007 at 09:06 PM
Fingers crossed ! And remember rocks are good !
Posted by: William Patton | July 20, 2007 at 12:42 AM