The first weeks in May were unusually cold and the buds on the vines appeared to be in arrested development. We finally had budbreak on most of our varieties around May 11. The cool temperatures that continued allowed us to remove excess buds, in a process called disbudding.
On Saturday, May 23, we had showers that lasted all day long. A few days previous to that, I posted a blog that was about
Rub Out Those Buds. In that blogpost, I showed an example of Chardonnay. After the rains on Saturday, most of the Chardonnay had grown like the proverbial weed!
Rain during this period of time is especially welcome because it helps the developing vine to grow. This period of growth will lead to long internodes and good spacing for the leaves and flowers, the eventual grape cluster.
According to Ed Hellman's
Grapevine Structure and Function, our vines are at Principle Stage 1, Leaf Development.
Our Chardonnay is textbook stage 15. What is interesting for us this year is that many of the Chardonnay have two inflorescences!
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