Time to Net The Grapes

As of August 26th the grapes are ripening up well and we are still a bit ahead of usual but hardly enough to speak of. With the early spring and slow progression into heat some of the varieties that take longer to ripen budded out quite early. Usually the ground at our location stays quite cool until late April early may and then the varieties start to push buds and they all do so within a few days of each other.  This year there was 7-10 days between the bud break of all the varieties.

All varieties are healthy with no fungal pressure on the fruit.  We had a bit of powdery mildew in early summer on leaves and shoot tips of a few varieites but it did not manifest into the fruit and in fact even the Seigerrebe and Pinot Noir are not experiencing any n noteable problems from it.

The reds are looking really good with Leon Millot, Lucy Kuhlman and Colmar Precoce Noir the furthest ahead and then Marquette just behind. A surprise is the Regent that this year is not far behind the earliest grapes. Its usually one of the latest to ripen but it will be interesting to see how this year works for it but wouldnt use this year as a baseline as the early spring was an anomally.  Pinot Noir is similar in that it seems further ahead compared to the others than what we'd expect in a normal year.  Castel is looking good with long loose clusters and the Foch and Triompe D'Alsase are good.

Marechal foch

Lucy Kuhlman

Pinot Noir

Regent

St. Croix

Triompe D'Alsace

The whites are a different story and as I mentioned in earlier blogs most of them they flowered later than the reds and when they did it was really rainy and cold and the fruit set was not great.  The Ravat 34 and Vandal Cliche were not too bad and then Evangeline and Seyval simiar in fruit set but not great.  The worst was L'Acadie Blanc.  Petite Millot was good in the fruit set but it flowered earlier with the reds.

Siegerrebe

Seyval