Sep 20, 2011
Vineyard happenings at Kerr Farm Wine.
September is when the new growing season starts again in the vineyard. All the winter pruning and the taking of cuttings should be finished. I was running a bit late this year so some of my later varieties did not get finished until the middle of the month.
As the soil and the air temperatures rise and the days get longer budburst is stimulated. The buds that have been hiding all winter, begin to emerge from the canes of last year’s fruiting wood. If the winter has had a few cold snaps and some good frosts, budburst is usually quite even and the shoots grow at a similar level of development. However if the winter has been warmer this is not the case and budburst can be uneven and therefor the shoots will be at different levels of development.
This may not seem very important, but it is. If the shoots grow evenly, the grapes, the important part, ripen evenly as well. At harvest time all the grapes will be at a similar stage of development and nice ripe fruit makes good wine. If budburst has been uneven the fruit will also ripen unevenly, so there will be ripe grapes and some not so ripe. This makes winemaking more difficult.