Harvest Time in the Vineyard September 2005

by Randy Fulk

Dawn. I rise in the quiet stillness, pour the first cup of life restoring coffee and sit on the porch for a moment. A light fog has settled during the night, covering everything in an edge softening mist. In these moments before sunrise one can almost forget that in a few hours once again it will be hot enough to melt concrete- to turn perspiration and dust into a sticky paste that makes you feel as though you are frying in your own grease.

The reverie is broken by the shrill cry of the bird scare machine or squawk box as we in the grape biz refer to them. Everyday starting at sunrise it begins its annoying ritual of sounding off distress calls of various fowl, hopefully steering ravenous birds clear of the luscious Chardonnay hanging dead ripe in the rows nearby. This is late summer in the vineyard. Harvest time is closing in. Which is why I’m up so early on a Sunday morning.

It’s time to pull another berry sample- walk every row picking berries at random until my freezer bag is almost full. Pull one from the top of the cluster, then one from the bottom- next one from the middle on the east side followed by one from the middle on the west side. I start the sequence over again or perhaps reverse it trying not to look as I pick the berries. If you look it’s too tempting to pick only the best looking berries thereby giving an inaccurate view of the overall state of ripeness of the vineyard. I press the berries to extract the juice- a rather murky brown viscous liquid that tastes surprisingly good given its appearance. PH, acidity, Brix- all well and good but over time you develop a feel and taste for ripeness that are accurate well beyond the lab analysis numbers. I record the readings and begin the dance- the dance that has taken place since time immortal. Are they ready? How much longer? What’s the long range forecast for next week? How much more will the deer, raccoons, foxes, turkeys, et al eat before I pick? Is the winery ready to take them? Where can I find enough pickers when everyone else is competing for them as well?

I have the Weather Channel on the TV in the den and Accu-Weather on the PC along with windows open to several other climatalogical sites. All eyes are on Katrina right now. I dance a bit more- wait and hope we don’t get much rain or pick now and remove all doubt? How much rain could the berries absorb and not split or fall off the stems? If the storm hits us what kind of weather is on the other side- will there be a period of drying, sunny days good for ripening or constant clouds and rain? The entire season is all coming down to what happens with the weather over the next thirty-six hours. The harvest hangs in the balance.

This is the end game of the grape season and as in Chess, where you are now depends a lot on how you played the opening. If you pruned off too many buds in late winter you now have canes twenty feet long with precious little fruit on them. If you left too many buds you now have lots of short spindly shoots that don’t have enough leaves to ripen one cluster of grapes, let alone the three clusters you’re hell bent on leaving there. If early on you did a good job of controlling the plethora of fungal diseases that plague us, your vineyard may look relatively clean. If you scrimped on spray materials in an attempt to control the skyrocketing cost of producing the crop, you now have leaves with brown, shriveled edges- if you still have leaves at all. Photosynthesis is a word these leaves no longer comprehend. If there is no photosynthesis there is no more nutrient flow and whatever state of ripeness the berries have attained rest assured they will progress no further. You find out what kind of farmer you are at season’s end. There is no way to gloss over mistakes made early on- no way to erase the week of neglect when you went to the beach taking a well deserved (of course) vacation. There is no more spectacular or public way to display your shortcomings and failures than in a poorly managed vineyard at season’s end. The vines are temperamental and susceptible to an incredibly wide range of pests. They try our patience to the limit of endurance. They are more trouble than roses ever dreamed of being, and yet- like roses, you find yourself caring for them in spite of themselves- in spite or yourself. When they have long since taken any shred of self respect you might have had you still rise early to top shoots, pull leaves, thin the clusters, spray for weeds and any of the myriad of relentless tasks that begin in mid winter and never once loosen the strangle hold grip on your throat until mid fall. The romance of the grape- please, check your romance at the door and hand me the pruning shears. Ah, romance.

There is no doubt that a vineyard is a thing of beauty. It conjures up indelible images of great meals enhanced by the perfect bottle of wine. You always remember the time you stumbled into a quaint, out of the way winery to discover a new varietal, or the perfect red blend. You walk through the vineyard and remember the wine shared at a friend’s fiftieth birthday party, the aroma of that reserve Cab Franc, the silky mouth feel of the 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon, and for some- the wine, like the music you fell in love to. The truly memorable vintages don’t come along that often. Certainly wine will be made this year and the next but that truly magical union of all things- healthy soil, vines in perfect balance, rain early on then tapering off over the summer becoming very dry near the end, the way we manage the vineyard- you can count those on one hand. You only get one chance per year to get it right.

So it is the thrill of the hunt that drives us. It is the hope that this year will be one of those to remember. We hope that years later people will still talk about it and search desperately for wines from the vintage paying outrageous prices just to experience the results of our efforts over the course of that long, hot summer of 2005 when the sun shone just right, when there was harmony in the vineyard that perhaps renewed our faith if only for a moment that man with nature’s help could truly accomplish something good- something worthwhile.