Hard to believe it is the 15th already. I feel like the summer is racing by and it just got here! We are in the midst of bloom in our vineyard as well as at BeckenRidge Vineyard which I visited on Monday. The varietals aren't blooming in quite their normal order so it will be interesting to see what happens at harvest. The Foch is just about done and the Riesling and Chardonnay are nearing 50%. Pinot noir and Pinot gris are just starting and you have to look in the Gewurztraminer to find a bloom but it will come. Here are our two clusters, as you can see the Foch is done and the grapes are already starting while the Chard is just finishing bloom and grape formation hasn't really started.
I included a second picture of the Chard cluster so you can see how the next cluster on the shoot hasn't even started yet. This will lead to ripening differences between the clusters in the fall. We also started leaf pulling on the Foch, a little difference than cleaning the heads but with the same purpose, to open up the fruiting zone to light, air and the sprayer. This picture of our marked Foch cluster was taken while Mary was just starting to remove leaves while in the above picture is afterwards. Big difference from the perspective of the cluster.
The winery is pretty quiet, one good thing that happened is that the last four barrels of Pinot noir finally finished ML so this week they finally got their protective dose of sulfur while I was checking the other barrels. I feel much more comfortable knowing they are protected. We are scheduled to bottle the sparkling wine on Tuesday next week and I am very excited about that. I'll be learning a new process so it should be interesting and hopefully will go smoothly. You'll get to read all about it, I promise.
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