Of vineyards, and soccer…
Now comes the time of year in the life of a vigneron/soccer geek to get really excited. Veraison (color change) will soon be happening in the vineyards, harvest is only several weeks away, interns start arriving to join our team for crush, and the european soccer season is underway!
First to the vineyards. We’ve had a truly bizarre year in terms of weather here. A late, cool, and rainy spring, followed by a brief massive heat spike in May. Then a much cooler than average summer, with a couple more brief bursts of heat into the Hi 90s for 2-3 days each. Then a couple of serious thunderstorms and downpours in August – it never rains here in the summer – and then cool days in the 60s and 70s. What the hell is going on?
All I know for sure is that, absent an extremely bizarre change in the weather, we’re not going to start harvest until sometime in early October – how early will depend on much sun and warmth we get between now and then. I walked our rows at Maresh and Ribbon Ridge yesterday morning, and there is not one berry turning color yet, everything remains a vibrant green – which is fine for springtime, but normally (if there is such a thing) we’d be seeing a good amount of red by the last week of August. We’ve got a ways to go, folks.
RIbbon Ridge Vyd. - August 2008
And the two vineyards could not look more different. RIbbon Ridge set a huge crop in the spring, so we subsequently thinned to one cluster per shoot quite early. The clusters are medium to large, with uniformly-sized berries, and the vines seem nicely in blance. At Maresh, there are a jillion tiny, scraggly clusters – every one of which has serious hens-n-chicks/millerandage going on. We will do our first thinning pass here next week, cleaning up the weaker clusters and the over-productive shoots – and then we’ll see what we’ve got. I would bet that at most it’s 1-1.4 tons to the acre here (whereas RR will should be right at 2 tons.) We’re supposed to see some sun again soon, they tell me…
On the other side of the coin – soccer season is underway! My one huge passion outside of wine is soccer, so I’m psyched to have the european leagues back in action after the summer break. In the English Premiere League – I’m picking Chelsea for the title this year (yes, event hough I’m an Arsenal supporter), I’ll go with Barcelona in Spain, my beloved Lyon for the 8th title in a row in France, and in Italy I’m rooting for Jose Mourinho to kick major ass at Inter-Milan – I’d love to see him go deep into the Champions League and face Chelsea in a semi-final. Now THAT would be a match…
Juninho lining up a free-kick last March in Lyon
