We've been spending time checking out the grapes lately, walking through each vineyard carefully
inspecting the bunches to look for signs of anything wrong... Well, kind of. At this point now that we're fully into "veraison" downy mildew isn't really a risk anymore, so that's a relief. It did rain quite a bit last Monday and Tuesday, just after we plowed, so that was good! I found one or two grapes in the roussanne that had a grape worm, but I just plucked that particular grape off, and didn't see any more. Matt always says I'm much more observant than he is when I find things like that, I don't really think it's observant, I think it's that I worry more about things going wrong.
The few grapes that we have look good so far. The syrah has pretty much fully turned, and by taste, you can tell that the sugar levels are starting to rise albeit slowly. The weather here has been unseasonably cool at night and only in the mid 70s during the day, which is not the way to get things to ripen here in the south. We spoke with Remy Klein of La Réméjeanne last week and he said that he thought this would be the first year that they picked their syrah and then actually stopped harvest to wait for the grenache to ripen. Normally he would start in the syrah and pick straight through, but with the cool weather, the grenache just isn't ripening as quickly.
It's going to be a different harvest this year, can't wait to see how it turns out~! I'm just crossing my fingers that it doesn't rain in September, then we may be harvesting grape soup!
well, I think we all keep our fingers crossed this year, Amy! At least we didn't have the hale storm as in the Beaujolais region (at least not yet...)
I wish you a warm ans sunny August September, as we wish for us here in the back country of the Hérault, which has once again been under 24 hours of rain - but the drying wind is coming this evening, so there is hope:-)
Besides: your grapes look nice on the photo!
Posted by: Iris | August 19, 2008 at 09:34 PM
We all keep our fingers crossed... I need Gramière's wines for my customers !
Posted by: Baraou | August 28, 2008 at 07:29 PM