After 5 months of hard slog tending the vineyard, pruning, spraying, slashing and loving care we are experiencing some diabolical wet weather. Not only do the grapes get disease from the damp conditions, the lack of sunshine stops them ripening fully. People often refer to the grape leaves as "sugar factories", and it's the sugar, baume level, that determines the picking time and alcoholic content of the wine. Baume is God to the winemakers, so we struggle like crazy in the Hunter with the wet weather and lack of sunshine at this time of the year.
We picked our Semillon on Friday, it was the best crop we've had in 10 years here. Great size bunches and the wet has not had quite the effect on the Semillon as it does not need as much baume as the Chardonnay and Shiraz. Anything from 10 - 12 will do. Very little disease, and some pretty impressive stats. Best of the best.
The Chardonnay is a different story - sitting on 12 baume at the moment we're hoping for at least another 1/2 degree before we're due to pick on Friday. We'll hand pick again, this time to pick the better fruit from the diseased bunches that have developed in the wet. Shot below is of a badly diseased bunch, Botrytis and rot, the following picture a perfect example of healthy fruit.
Raining again this morning! Not sure now what shape we'll be in for Friday!
How frustrating!
