Rondo Harvest and Pinot Noir Veraison

Today we harvested the Rondo. We have very little yield. The young plants had lovely bunches that seemed unaffected by Downy Mildew. However, any that were not bagged were eaten. Hares, foxes, and pine martens would have found them very tasty. Some that were eaten had bags lying on the ground next to them. Those cheeky buggers may have removed the bags to get at the tasty morsels. There weren't many, but they were lovely. 

The Rondo from the older vines were severely affected by the mildew, so our take was barely one bushel. Curiously, the old Rondo grapes taste very different from the new Rondo grapes. It broke my heart to see how many we lost. The berries that did survive are bigger than any we've had to date. We destemmed and crushed and got about 4 litres of must. Very little. It measured Brix 20 and so had enough sugar to get to a high enough ABV. 

We added the Brown yeast with nutrient and enzymes. Then Alex had a bright idea. We had 11 bottles   (750 ml) of wine from a few years ago (2021?  we didn't label it 😳😬) that is relatively undrinkable as it is too sweet. We tasted it, and it was highly reminiscent of port -- not bad, just sweet. He suggested we add those bottles to this year's must to increase the volume and ferment together. The wine tested at a Brix of 14. It was from a year that we added a sugar solution because we had very little must. I have a feeling it was the same year we thought the grapes had dried into raisins with the drought. But now we know it wasn't drought. It was mildew. So it was a similar year to this one. Alex measured the alcohol content; it's a respectable 12.4%.

As the situation couldn't be much worse than it already was, if we had had a stuck fermentation back then, we could restart it with this batch. Let's see what happens. 

And then we noticed another major development in the vineyard. Veraison has started in the Pinot Noir. 😀 We did not notice it yesterday, and we had both looked for it. 

Of course, in cool climates, Pinot Noir often requires 55 to 65 days for proper flavour development for still wine. Grapes are picked much earlier for sparkling wines, typically 42 to 50 days after veraison at a lower sugar level (18 to 20 Brix). If the weather continues as it has been, we could make it to harvest. I'll have to start spraying and keep my fingers crossed. 

A new rapid attribution study published today shows that increased temperatures and evaporation levels directly linked to climate change will make for drier farming and land conditions in Ireland.