Linden Update | August 10, 2022
Exuberant vines reach for the sky.
Time to Dry out
The vines are looking good. Too good. There is a saying that struggling vines make the best wine. Let’s hope that’s not entirely true. This year the vines are exuberant, lush, green, and happy. The growing season can best be described as wet with intermittent dry spells. Those dry spells have been sunny and hot resulting in a vineyard that feels like a miniature equatorial forest. Our hope is that this weekend’s glorious weather will hold for the next two months!
Véraison begins among the lush vines.
Véraison
The vines are approaching the véraison stage. This is when the berries turn color, soften up, and start to ripen. The vines should put all their effort into ripening grapes. However if the soil remains moist, the vines prefer to keep growing leaves. This continuation of the vegetative cycle can compete with ripening. This is why we would like the rains to stop.
Because we have no control in the weather department, we turn to biomass management. This is a fancy term for letting the weeds, grass, and even vine shoots go crazy. The idea is to literally suck the moisture out of the soil (transpiration). If there is enough competition then the vines will slow down their vegetative cycle and turn to ripening grapes.
Jonathan hedges…
and hedges…
and hedges…
Our preference is that it stop raining.
The good news is that the crop is abundant (even with two hail events) and the harvest could be late. We prefer a ripening that takes place in the cooler parts of September and even October as the wines will show more finesse, freshness, and density.
Speaking of harvest, we are doing something different this year:
Harvest and Crush | Tour and Tasting
For vintage 2022, we are offering one educational tour and tasting at 11:00 every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday during harvest. This is your opportunity to see how we make wine. Crush—from picking the grapes to extracting the juice and starting fermentation—only lasts for about six weeks. Our educational tour begins in the vineyard and continues on the crush pad and in the cellar. You will be able to sample grapes, juice and/or fermenting wine (depending on availability). We’ll finish the tour with a comparative wine tasting.
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Linden Vineyards / Learn More / Latest at Linden | Update: August 10, 2022