Journal | September 25, 2021
Grapes are OK, but Fragile
After Wednesday’s deluge we have had perfect ripening weather. The big concern centered around grape integrity. With a large hit of water the grapes will swell. Even worse they can crack. If this happens they lose their protective coating and start to fall apart. They cannot recover, even under ideal weather conditions.
To our relief, we saw very little cracking. But we did see some, especially in young vines. Fortunately under these dry, sunny, low dew point conditions the compromised berries are simply drying up like raisins. If it stayed wet they would have started to rot which could then spread to otherwise healthy berries.
The grapes are now losing some of the dilution and continuing to ripen. They are fragile and cannot take any more long duration rains. The weather over the next two weeks will have a huge impact over the quality of our 2021 red wines.
We resume harvest on Monday with our old vine Chardonnay and then start with Merlot on Wednesday.
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Linden Vineyards / Learn More / Latest at Linden | Journal: September 25, 2021