Hardscrabble Journal

Mid-summer Vineyard Update

Memorial Day through the Fourth of July is our busiest stretch in the vineyard. Shoot positioning, leaf and lateral removal, top hedging, young vine de-fruiting, weeding, mowing, and spraying all need to be accomplished with precise timing.

We are now over the vineyard hump. There is still a lot to do, but now some of us can fall back and work on other things such as getting the cellar ready for August bottling and September crush.

June was kind to the vines. Early in the month we had good conditions for a very successful pollination. It was dry and sunny, so the grape flowers were very synchronistic in their bloom. An even bloom results in uniform ripening. Each individual berry on a given cluster is at the same development stage. Uniform ripening is one of many key ingredients of a high-quality vintage.

Good June weather helped make up for some of the setbacks of a cold April and early May. This year’s bloom was very late as a result of the cold spring. The heat and dry conditions we are now experiencing will help accelerate vine development. We are still anticipating a later than normal harvest, but it now looks like it will be days rather than weeks late.

The good pollination we experienced will also help make up for the lack of clusters in Merlot and Chardonnay. These two early budding varieties lost a fair number of developing shoots from the Mother’s Day freeze. Nothing can be done to replace the missing clusters, but fortunately the remaining clusters will be larger than average due to good pollination and therefore a larger number of berries per cluster.

Early August will start veraison, which is the color change in berries and the beginning of the ripening phase. Every August, for each variety, we record the date when 50% of the berries turn color. This allows us to better predict a harvest date as we can compare this season’s date with previous vintages.

Until then hazy, hot, and humid works just fine. For the vines that is.

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Linden Vineyards / Learn More / Latest at Linden | Journal: July 6, 2020