Vineyard update

[piedmont_phil]

Hi folks, sorry not to have posted for some time - it is a challenging year in the vineyard!
The unheard of 22 contiguous days of rain have caused all sorts of problems to Piedmont's winemakers, including being unable to get tractors into the vineyards due to the unsafe (mud) conditions; grapes being stripped off young vines by the heavy rain, and all sorts of damp and fungal attacks. We even had to use a helicopter to spray the vines a few weeks back.

Just finished training the vines onto the trellis work (a job that should have been finished weeks ago) - so here is a before and after picture of that. You can read more in our vineyard diary.

[Lorraine]

Will we be running a book again on which vines produce the most grapes?

[piedmont_phil]

Lorraine - have not had the opportunity to photograph individual wines so far this year - so I suspect not - but lets se what competition I can invent

[piedmont_phil]

Well at long last the (more than) full time work in the vineyard is slowing down. We finally got "varaison" about 10 days ago (when the grapes change colour). This is the point where the folliage stops growing and so on.

The abundance of water means nothing has stoped growing this year (especially the weeds) and the big storms have made a mess several times (trees and telephone posts down etc.)

Of course we are now less than 2 weeks from our Moscato d'asti harvest, so I had better go and strip some leaves in preperation for that!

I have updated my vineyard diary for those who want a fuller update.

[Heiko]

I'm amazed to hear you've had such bad weather. We've had no rain to speak of since the 18th of June! Harvest here looks very good and healthy due to the plentyful rain in spring and good summer period. Good luck with the harvest. I'll be helping a neighbour with his starting mid-September

[piedmont_phil]

Hi Heiko
Two very big storms plus some minor cloudbursts. I guess the costal zone does not get the high humidity flash storms that the "interior" does. You may have seen the photo's on my vineyard diary of our tractor garage roof - totaly destroyed by a mini-tornado.