Visiting Vineyards

Now that Labour Day has passed us by and the world was righted again with a Rider victory over Staggerville I have been busy visiting the vineyards where we source our grapes from.  Generally speaking I think things are about a week or so behind where we usually are at this time. Colour in the red grapes is coming but varies depending on the soil types of the site. Lighter rockier vineyards like Scout Vineyard is more advanced than our vineyard where heavier soils exist. The rockier lighter soils warm up quicker in the springtime and get an earlier start which really starts to show results in seasons like this one. The Passion Pit vineyard shows this dramatically as the rocky soiled top section of the Cabernet is fully purple already while the flat heavier section still has about 50% green clusters. Fortunately for us the weather has been amazing for the past 5 weeks and the forecast is for more sun and heat.  Nets go on later this week and then we wait.....