2022 Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Barbera Harvest

Not even a week after our 2022 Chenin Blanc Harvest we were back in the vineyard, harvesting our Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Barbera. How did this happen, you ask? Mother Nature was dealing rain on Sunday and Monday and Jonathan Edwards was going to harvest his Cabernet Franc on Friday. Originally, the plan was to harvest on Sunday but things can change on a dime. We were able to around up a crew on very short notice and we had around 16 people willing to come early and harvest. It was a beautiful fall day, net lifting began around 7:30 and harvest began around 8:30.

The first grapes, two rows of Cabernet Sauvignon was brought in and filled two bins. The bins were loaded onto trucks to make the trip to Jonathan Edwards winery.

Meanwhile, the crew continued to harvest the Cabernet Franc and the Barbera. The filled lugs of Cabernet Franc were picked up and the Barbera was done before noon! Simply amazing! The crew took a break for lunch and we picked up the Barbera and put the grapes into the lugs for transport to the winery.
Due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, we were not able to get the weight of the grapes, we hope to back calculate from the number of gallons to have an approximation of the weight.
Here are the statistics with a little historical context for our Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc with the first entry for the Barbera.

Variety	Harvest Date	Brix	pH	TA	Lbs	Gals
Cabernet Sauvignon
	November 3, 2019	19	3.25	11.1 g/L	332	30
	October 22, 2020	22.4	3.08	10.7 g/L	888	80
	October 24, 2021	20.1	3.07	10.4 g/L	561	45
	October 21, 2022	21.0	3.26	- g/L	1300	104
Cabernet Franc
	October 26, 2019	23	3.23	11.3 g/L	377	32
	October 22, 2020	23.3	3.27	11.3 g/L	872	80
	October 24, 2021	19.8	3.20	7.4 g/L	402	32
	October 21, 2022	22.0	3.27	- g/L	1200	96
Barbera
	October 21, 2022	22.5	3.00	- g/L	600	48

Once again, we owe a debt of gratitude to all the people who came on such short notice to help us bring in our red grapes. We also want to thank the crew at Jonathan Edwards for their help in our 2022 harvest!

2022 Chenin Blanc Harvest

Our Chenin Blanc harvest occurred on Sunday, October 16 and Monday, October 17. Before harvest could occur however, we had one more round of rainfall from Thursday, October 13 into Friday October 14 that we had to deal with. Wet weather just degrades grape quality in a big way. Although we didn't have the flooding conditions that some forecasters called for, we did have a steady rain that lasted for approximately 12 hours.
When Sunday came around, we had a hard working crew of approximately 35 people who helped us select only the best grapes to put into our yellow lugs. We have 17 rows of Chenin Blanc so on Sunday, the crew helped us to harvest the first 11 rows of Chenin Blanc. On Monday, we harvested the rest of the best grapes from the remaining rows.
On Monday, we had 6-1/2 bins of good quality Chenin Blanc that were at Jonathan Edwards winery. Unfortunately, it was raining again on Monday and Jon opined that he thought the grapes were in good shape and advised us come back first thing Tuesday morning to begin the destemming and pressing. It was very good advice! We went back yesterday and the destemming and pressing commenced from 10 a.m. and ended at 1:10 p.m.

Here is a comparison to previous year's numbers at harvest:

Variety	Harvest Date	Brix	pH	TA	Lbs	Gals
Chenin Blanc
	October 14, 2019	21.6	3.15	13.5 g/L	3930	305
	October 11, 2020	23.3	3.09	12.1 g/L	8201	655
	October 17-18, 2021	20.4	3.17	14.6 g/L	6200	496
	October 16-17, 2022	21.0	3.07	8.9 g/L	4901	392

Again, we do want to thank all of our dedicated crew for helping us to harvest just the best of the Chenin Blanc.

Vintage 2022: October Update

I thought that I knew what New England fall was like. Beautiful humidity free days with abundant sunshine at just the perfect temperature with a backdrop of trees changing color.
As for our fall harvest, it is really like clockwork so we shouldn't be surprised. After the Chardonnay harvest, we harvest the Chenin Blanc which is the variety that is the most abundant in our vineyard growing in 17 of the 36 rows. On October 1, the day before our Chardonnay harvest, the remnants of Hurricane Ian brought rain to our region. In fact, it was also supposed to rain on Sunday, when we harvested the Chardonnay, but the rain held off although the day was raw with strong gusts of wind.
It rained overnight from October 5 to October 6, as well as from October 7 to October 8. Currently, we are looking at wet weather today into Friday, expected to bring 2-inches of rain to our region.

Why all this concern about rain, you ask? Here is what our Chenin Blanc looked like in September. Pristine, ripening grapes.

With all of the rains that we have been having, here is what the Chenin Blanc looks like now:

The rot you see is botrytis and in some areas it has formed a fibrous mat. Not the thing you want to see in the vineyard so we have been working diligently to remove the most affected grapes. So far, I believe that we have taken out about 500 pounds of rot from 9 rows of Chenin Blanc. We have a few more days until harvest comes around on Sunday, October 16. You will find us tryng our best to remove as much rot as we possibly can.
While removing the rot, we wonder if we could have done something to prevent this botrytis from spreading. One thing we could do is to makes two passes of leaf removal, once before veraison, when the weather is extremely hot and then once after veraison when the sun is not so intense. The later leaf removal will give the grapes more air flow and possibly prevent any rot from spreading.
What I would like to ask, "Where is the Indian summer that New England is known for?"
Postscript: Just in case I painted too dire a picture, there are still many beautiful clusters of Chenin Blanc waiting to be harvested on Sunday.

Update on the Brix and pH for Our Vineyard

We now have our Auxerrois and Chardonnay harvested, but it has now been 4 weeks since we last took our Brix, pH and titratable acid numbers for the remaining grape varieties that we grow. We were able to do this on October 6. Here is what we are currently seeing which will help us guide when and what we harvest next. From previous experience, we know that the next up is our Chenin Blanc. The numbers there look promising. Now all we need is for Mother Nature to provide us with some benevolent sunshine.

Variety	Sample Date/ Harvest Date	Brix	pH	TA
Auxerrois	September 15	19	3.02	12.2 g/L
Auxerrois Harvest	September 25	20.0	3.16	7.1 g/L

Variety	Sample Date/ Harvest Date	Brix	pH	TA
Chenin Blanc 982	September 16	18.8	2.82	13.80 g/L
Chenin Blanc 982	October 6	20.8	2.95	11.7 g/L
Chenin Blanc FPS-1	September 16	18	2.79	10.3 g/L
Chenin Blanc FPS-1	October 6	20.2	2.90	8.0 g/L

Variety	Sample Date/ Harvest Date	Brix	pH	TA
Chardonnay	September 15	20.6	2.88	12.1 g/L
Chardonnay Harvest	October 2	22.5	3.1-3.2	7-9 g/L

Variety	Sample Date/ Harvest Date	Brix	pH	TA
Cabernet Sauvignon	September 16	18	2.80	12.8 g/L
Cabernet Sauvignon	October 6	20.0	2.90	11.1 g/L

Variety	Sample Date/ Harvest Date	Brix	pH	TA
Cabernet Franc	September 16	18.6	2.85	12.3 g/L
Cabernet Franc	October 6	20.8	2.95	8.4 g/L

Variety	Sample Date/ Harvest Date	Brix	pH	TA
Barbera	September 18	18.6	2.64	17.2 g/L
Barbera	October 6	21.0	2.72	11.0 g/L

2022 Chardonnay Harvest

Our second harvest occurred on October 2, 2022, but we first had to get through the wet weather that came our way from the remnants of Hurricane Ian. It rained all day on Saturday with the forecast for harvest on Sunday looking less than promising. I called my mother, a Buddhist minister who has a direct line to the Almighty and asked her to pray for no rain. When Sunday came around, the skies were grey but there was no rain!
Our friends began showing up at 8 a.m. to help us raise the nets and a small but motivated crew assembled at 9:00 a.m. and began harvesting the Chardonnay. This year, our daughter and her family from Worcester also came to help us harvest so that we were done with harvesting the 8 rows of Chardonnay at 12:30!
Our neighbor helped my husband to pull in the filled lugs and our stalwart (definition=loyal, reliable, dedicated) friends who have a trailer stayed until we could take the palettes to Jonathan Edwards Winery to spend the night.

When Monday morning came around, we went to the winery to begin cleaning the stainless steel barrels for holding the pressed juice and made sure that the press was clean. Jonathan weighed the palettes for us and his crew (Josh and Dan, thank you both!) helped to put the harvest as whole clusters into the press. The press cycle began around 1:45 and by 3:45 it was over.

The hydrometer reading of the juice showed that the Brix of our harvested Chardonnay was 22.5^o. We tested the juice for barrels 1 and 2 separately since barrel 1 was mostly the free run juice and barrel 2 had the pressed fraction. Here is how this year's harvest numbers compare with other years.

Variety	Harvest Date	Brix	pH	TA	Lbs	Gals
Chardonnay
	September 28, 2019	21.5	3.17	9.4 g/L	291	26
	September 24, 2020	23.5	3.0	10.0 g/L	1136	80
	October 3, 2021	20.4	3.28	8.2 g/L	2625	210
Barrel 1	October 2, 2022	22.5	3.05	8.9 g/L
Barrel 2	October 2, 2022	22.5	3.11	7.5 g/L
					2306	185

What we did notice about the harvest was that the clusters were small and loose. The upside to that was that the grapes were the most pristine Chardonnay that we have ever grown!
Before closing this blog, we want to thank all of the people who came to brave the blustery, cold conditions to help us harvest the Chardonnay! Next time, when I put in my request to my mother, I need to ask her to pray for no rain and no wind and if it's not asking too much, just a little sunshine!

Vintage 2022: October

We have one harvest in the books and 5 more to go. The next scheduled harvest is for tomorrow, Sunday, October 2, 2022. However, we have to get through this weather system that is the remnants of Hurricane Ian which hit the west coast of Florida with such force and devastation (thinking of you in Florida!).
Our son, who lives in Massachusetts sent us a photo of the rains that we should expect to come our way.

That was really thoughtful of him, but with a harvest coming up, the weather was foremost on our minds. The problem is, Mother Nature is really hard to pin down and the forecast went from bad to good, to bad then not so bad, etc., if you do any kind of farming you know what I am talking about.
So far, the rain has been light but steady and instead of the 1.5 inches forecast, we have 0.45 inch so far.