At the end of June, Winemaker Mark Johnson gave us his spin on the growing season this year to date: Good day all! Spring is sprung, Fall is fell. Summers’s here and it is supposed to be hotter than usual, but it isn’t! We’ve had a very cool Spring and, in some ways, that’s been a blessing. I think it is part of the definition of farming to be behind in your work, and we sure were in April and May, so we were glad to be having cooler than normal weather. This gave us a chance to catch up on pruning and tying, spreading compost, fixing the trellises, planting a new vineyard and all of the other things that just seem to “spring” up. Also, the cool weather delayed bud break which reduced the risk of damage due to late Spring frosts. We came through without any problems, unlike last year when we lost up to 10% of the crop due to a freeze in May.
Blossom started on June 27, but you really have to look closely to see it. Unlike fruit trees which blossom right out of the bud in the Spring, vines blossom about 4 to 6 weeks after bud break, when the shoots are about 16 to 20 inches long. Also, it’s not a big, showy blossom like fruit trees because vines don’t need to attract bees for pollination; they’re self pollinating. We need sunny, warm weather now for a few days for a successful blossoming and it looks like we’re going to get it. Blossom, along with bud break, bunch closure (when the individual grapes in a cluster start to touch each other), veraison (the beginning of ripening when the grapes start to get soft and red grapes start to turn from green to red) and harvest are the key milestones in the growing season. We keep track of these very closely and compare them year to year. Bud break this year was about 10 to 14 days later than our 20 year average, but blossom in the last week of June is right on track, so we have made up for our late start to the season. Now we are hoping for warm, sunny weather for the rest of the year! Whatever sunshine we get from here on out, we’ll try to capture in the bottles next winter and offer back to you next Spring and Summer. I promise that it will be just as sweet the second time around.
July 22 update: It’s amazing to see how quickly a perception can change – we’ve certainly gotten the heat we need to “catch up” to last year’s growing season. With this last week of temperatures in the high 80′s and 90′s, we have added quite a large number to our growing degree days, and helped the vines along their growth track. With the heat also came the humidity, and we’ve been diligently checking for powdery mildew that can form on the vine under such conditions.
The cellar is busy preparing our copper pot still for production once again – we’ve been waiting on the Federal government to grant us our permit to use the still in the newly expanded cellar area and received it yesterday! A few more pieces need to be put together, but the bright copper has been freshly polished and is being readied for cherry distillation. We expect to have our Cherry Eau-de-Vie back in stock sometime this year!
