Dropping Unripe Chenin Blanc

We are seeing some strange behavior from our grape varieties this year. I wrote about the Mystery in the Vineyard where our Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Barbera leaves fell off. There is something else that we are noticing now that our Chenin Blanc harvest is coming up this Sunday, October 20 and the following Sunday, October 27.
On October 6, we picked a representative sample of Chenin Blanc from the 17 rows that we have. We split the sampling into the two clones, 982 and FPS-1. Both clones came in with numbers that were very low: 17 Brix and pH of 3.0. We decided then that we needed to drop some of the green berries in the rows. We began last week and saw many grape clusters that had brown peduncles and had shriveled and died on the vine. Along with those grapes, we saw many green bunches where the Brix ranged from 8-15 Brix. There were other grapes that were ripening normally and we think that in our sampling, we got a mixture of these green and ripe berries giving us an average Brix of 17.

The good news is that there is very little botrytis rot. We hope to finish dropping the unripe grapes by the time harvest approaches. After pressing, I will report the Brix, pH and TA. Stay tuned!