No, no, we are not moving to Arizona, but with this persistent rain, the weather there does look tempting. Actually, Steve just left about an hour ago to fly to Houston to visit some of our restaurant accounts, just to say a "Hi y'all!)! I'll join him on Saturday and we will catch up with eldest son, David and his new wife, Katie (now we have two Katie daughter-in-laws - both "acquired" within 2 months of each other! - August and October weddings last year!).
Many are asking us if the rain has affected our grapes. The short answer is "no." The longer answer is, "thankfully, not our grapes." We purposely prune the vines as late as possible to avoid late frost damage. We never in our wildest dreams that that our late pruning would help with rain! Noah would be proud this year of Mother Earth and we would be out there helping to construct that ark. It is snowing this week in the Sierras - come on, folks, it's almost June!
Once the vines have "flowered" (check out blog posts from around this time last year for flowering photos), a hard rain can knock off the flowers which are the predecessor to the grape. So, no flowers, no worries about the rain affecting the grape crop. There are other vineyards that have flowered (which could be a problem if the flowering has not completed) and some that are in the midst of flowering (not a good thing if the rain is hits those vines hard enough). I think it will be a couple of months before the Napa Valley truly knows the effect this late rain has had on the 2010 crop.
We must always remember that, even though grapes grown for wine are not an agricultural product in the true sense of the word, the bottom line is, we are farmers and subject to the whims of the weather.
Wow, that was one of the most serious (and probably boring) posts I have ever written. My apologies. I predict SUNSHINE by the weekend! Chantico.
This is me 'demonstrating' that there are no flowers budding yet!
0 comments:
Post a Comment