Mid-August finds us in the middle of a heat wave that began on August 11 and continued until August 14. Anytime the weather map looks like this is a good time to head for the cool indoors.
The heat wave may be compensating for what we thought would be véraison that would be a little later this year. We know that the Auxerrois is the first to ripen so we were busy netting our grapes. We had help during the heat wave on Saturday and now all five rows of Auxerrois have been netted!
This will be the first time that we have netted the Auxerois before the birds begin pecking at the sweet grapes. We do this so that the bird pecking which lures fruit flies and other insects won't have the opportunity to turn a beautiful bunch of grapes into a rotten mess!
You can use your senses to tell if the grapes are approaching véraison. The grapes will begin to soften and will feel different when you touch it from grapes that are still in the first growth and lag phase. You can also taste the grapes to see if they are sweet.
On August 12, I brought our
hand held refractometer to the vineyard to check on the Brix of the Auxerrois. It was at 11
oBrix.
I tasted one of the Auxerrois grapes and it was still very acidic, so not yet a tasty treat for birds.
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