The grapes are flowering
Just thought I would update on how the vineyard is doing this year.
Despite perceptions to the contrary, it’s been a pretty great year so far weather wise.
We had a nice warm spell in mid-April, which brought along bud break by the first of May. Bud break is the first real indication of how things are developing in the vineyard. We had a cool spell, followed by a really nice sustained hot period in early June. Enough heat to make it the warmest year in the past 9 by the third week in June. Our vines in Chemainus are all flowering, which is a month ahead of last year.
So far at least the season is looking really, really good. The grapes are right where we’d like them to be development wise, and we have another stretch of warm weather coming. The rains today are also very welcome as the vineyard has dried out a lot since spring, and a good soaking will relieve much of my work moving sprinklers around to keep our young vines from getting too thirsty.
So far the sparkling hasn’t had any exploding bottles. Stay tuned as we’re in the danger zone now (the secondary fermentation should be complete after 2-6 weeks)