They might get ripe yet!

I was out walking in the vineyard this morning to get our pictures and was testing the grapes just to get a feel for where we might be ripeness wise and the Foch is looking promising.  A few more weeks of this great weather and we should be there.  I tried to take a picture of what I'm looking at through the refractometer but it wasn't really successful.  I found an illustration on the internet so you can see a little better what I am looking at.  There should be a clear color change from white to blue which tells you the degrees of Brix in what you are measuring.  A Brix measurement is only accurate with sucrose in water but the instrument is pretty accurate when measuring juice.  Ideally we would like wine grapes to be between 22° and 24° Brix at harvest and this particular grape squashed out at about 18°.  I started wondering about other fruits for comparison and did a little reasearch.  I got this chart courtesy of Natural Check and found it quite interesting to look through.  You can click on the chart and get a larger version or go to the original at Natural Check, link above.

I did get our cluster pics too and here they are.  I guess I don't have to tell you which one is Foch anymore!

Not much else to report.  We decided on the 2010 Willamette Pinot last week and this week we have been working on the 2009 reserve pinots.  Those are easier and we are closer to a decision.  One more taste next week and I can start pulling things out of barrel.