Vintage 2022: It's July!

It's July. The grape varieties have flowered and are all in various stages of fruitset. Mother Nature provided us with rain on June 8, 9, 13, 17, 19, and 27. The Chardonnay being the first to bloom suffered a little from the rain events and looks like this:

What we know about our vineyard is that the Chardonnay is very susceptible to downy mildew. This year, we have paid particular attention to shoot thinning, shoot tucking and shoot positioning the Chardonnay. With all of the rain in June, the shoots reached beyond the last catchwires. Last year, we decided to hedge a little on the late side and the shoots were at least 5 feet beyond the last catchwires and become infected with the mildews. This year, we are hedging early to prevent that from occuring again. So, the Chardonnay looks like this:
The Good

The Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and the Barbera, being east of the Chardonnay also receives our attention. The second variety to receive more of our attention is the Auxerrois and it looks like this:
The Bad

The variety that often suffers from the attention that we give to our other varieties, is the Chenin Blanc. The Chenin Blanc is quite resilient so we tend to neglect it a bit. So, the Chenin Blanc looks like this:
The Ugly

Fortunately, we have reinforcements in the form of our family from Worcester and Hawaii. They are going to lend us a hand so we hope to turn "The Ugly" into "The Good".