Wine Diary
First red berries…
As soon as the red varietals begin to change color, the vines direct more and more energy towards their fruit sets. For us growers the start of ‘veraison’ is a good indicator for the ripening progress of all varietals and for the beginning of harvest. Actually, we have made astonishing progress during these last months after the cool and dry spring weather was replaced by a very warm summer season with abundant precipitation.
This means, of course, further work in the vineyards: The soils are mostly green-covered. After each rain, vines find ideal growing conditions - as do their competitors on the ground. In this case, the wine growers have to interfere as regulators: green cover should protect soils from erosion, overheating and drought. However, during the ripening period competition should be minimized. Our grapes grow about 50cm above ground or higher. It is better to keep the green cover crop between the vineyard rows short enough to prevent it from growing up to the grape zone and increase the risk of early fungal infections.
‘Veraison’ at the beginning of August indicates a very good year with truly ripe grapes. We might start our harvest for Sekt base-wines in about 4 weeks, at the beginning of September, even before we harvest our first grapes in 2022 for the Verjus.
