On Friday, August 12, my husband informed me that the Auxerrois grapes were softening, one of the indications that véraison is approaching. I took the hand held refractometer to the vineyard on Saturday and sampled one of the softest of the berries that I could find and the Brix (or sugar content) was at 11 degrees. Then I tasted it and it was still very acidic.
Nevertheless, we began to net the grapes so that they will not be such an attraction for the Baltimore Orioles who really want to have a sugar load before they migrate south for the winter.
We began netting the Auxerrois on August 12 and finished the fifth row on August 15.
We use clothespins as a netting closure because we find that it is an easy and effective means of closing the nets. It is also relatively simple to remove the clothes pins for taking samples for monitoring the Brix, pH and titratable acids and when it comes time to harvest, we simply raise the netting and use the clothes pins to secure it to the trellis wire.
We know that the next grapes to reach véraison is the Chardonnay so we will be lowering the nets in that variety in the days to come.
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