Millerandage

I love the way millerandage, a French wine growing term is pronounced [mil-ROHN-dahdzh] but what it actual is in grapes is not so lovely. We have some of that happening on our grapes and that condition is a direct reflection on what it was like when the flowers were beginning to bloom and pollinated.
In looking back to a blogpost I wrote on June 28, The Sight of One Flower Blooming, on June 20 we saw very little flowers in bloom and then on Monday, June 22, we saw many flowers in bloom. Sandwiched between those two days was Sunday, a day that brought 3/4-inch of rain. Rain during flowering as well as cold weather can lead to millerandage, otherwise known as "hens and chicks" or shot berries.
The thing with millerandage is that the smaller berries will not ripen at the same time that the larger berries will ripen and there is a chance for having green flavors in the resultant wine. We will not have this problem because we only have 366 clusters of grapes and I am thinking of hand destemming each cluster. (NOT....but may be).
The Wikipedia has a very good explanation on Millerandage that is worth checking out.

Cleaning Our Grape Clusters

In addition to Counting Clusters we have been going through the vineyard to get rid of raisiny looking grapes.

The question is, what causes grapes to look like that. My husband thought that we might have a problem with the spotted wing drosophila so I am looking into this. I recall that there was a post that described a method of trapping the drosophila and I found it here: Spotted Wing Drosophila.

The method is simple: Create a trap from a clear plastic cup with a lid. Make small holes in the plastic lid. Make two holes on the sides of the cup near the top and insert wire, string or twist ties in the holes to enable it to be hung. Get yellow sticky cards to put on the inside of the plastic cup and fill the bottom with apple cider vinegar. Hang the trap near a grapevine. The vinegar acts as an attractant and the yellow sticky card will trap the insects.

The female and male spotted wing drosophila look like the following photo. It is the male that has the spots on it's wings, the female does not have any spots.

The female, however, is the destructrix. Using her saw-like ovipositor she deposits her eggs inside sound fruit providing a home for the developing larvae.
Click here: Drosophila suzukii for a closeup view of the male and female spotted wing drosophila as well as distinguishing characteristics between a spotted wing drosophila female and a female drosophila ovipositor.


References:
1. Washington State University IPM: Spotted Wing Drosophila.
2. Ministry of Agriculture, British Columbia, Spotted Wing Drosophila (Fruit Fly) Pest Alert.

Cluster Counting

One of the things that we could do even in the sweltering heat was to update our plant count and at the same time, do a cluster count. We don't have any Chardonnay clusters and we only have 20 clusters on our Auxerrois, so at best, we hope to be able to taste our Auxerrois to see what kinds of flavors we can achieve. We do have approximately 465 healthy Chenin Blanc plants and a conservative count of the clusters gives a total of 366 clusters.
Another way to look at the count of our plants and clusters is to see it as a graph. It is not surprising that the rows with the most plants gives the most clusters.
In the chart below, the vertical axis, Y1 denoted by the blue circles gives the number of clusters and Y2 denoted by the green bar graph shows the number of plants. The horizontal axis is the row information.

The question is, what can we do with a mere 366 clusters. I looked at a previous blogpost, that I called How Many Grapes Does It Take to Make a Bottle of Wine and did some calculations. I assumed that each cluster will have a weight of approximately 0.2 pounds and multiplied it by the number of clusters, 366, which amounts to approximately 73 pounds. Looking at the chart, 912 pounds equals 73 gallons, so 73 pounds equals 5.84 gallons. A few years ago, when my husband and I began our journey into grape growing and winemaking, my friend gave me her winemaking kit so, somewhere deep in the bowels of our basement, I have a 5 gallon jug. I'm thinking of making some wine from our Chenin Blanc.

Rabbit Wine and Champagne Sealer

Lately, we have been drinking sparkling wines and often we do not finish the entire bottle. (I know this is difficult to believe). My husband looked into closures for sparkling wines and found one. It is called the Rabbit Wine and Champagne Sealer sold by Metrokane. Buying this closure will not break the bank since it is around $5.00 and well worth it. The proof is in the bubbles, so here is a photo of the sparkling wine that we drank on the second day. The gizmo that saves bubbles in the sparkling is shown below.

We also enjoyed the sparkling that is shown capped with the Rabbit closure. It is a Domaine Eugéne Carrel Methode Traditionnelle. We had this with a Caprese salad which was refreshing on a hot, sweltering July evening.