The Wine Knows

I was wandering through the backyard this afternoon and noticed a few grapes here and there have turned color. With a week left in July, veraison - the French term for when grapes change color, stop growing in size and begin accumulating sugar and flavor - seems slightly early.

Yet, this entire vintage has been on the early side in Washington's Columbia Valley.

Bud break was a week or two early, as was flowering. And Mother Nature has been fairly kind - if a bit warm the past three weeks.

My nine Sangiovese vines (Brunello clone) are in their fourth season, and this crop seems rather heavy. Each vine has 15-20 good-quality clusters that are large and in good shape. A few have turned to raisins because of the extreme heat we've experienced since July 3 (it was 103 today).

During winter, I made several cuttings from my dormant vines to replace some plantings I lost the year I planted. I put one in the ground around Mother's Day, and it was not doing well until the past few weeks when it's gotten some good growth. Unless we have a hard winter, it should do well and probably will produce grapes two years from now.

Also this spring, I planted four Riesling vines. Only one budded initially, but now three are sprouting leaves. Seventy-five percent isn't bad, I supposed. I'll likely get my first crop off them in 2009. Riesling tends to carry a lot more fruit than, say, Pinot Noir or Cabernet Sauvignon, so I should do very well with these vines.

Last year, we (and several friends) made jelly out of the grapes that grew in our various backyards. This year, we plan to do much of the same, but I'd also like to make more sorbets. And another friend who makes sparkling wine would love to get five gallons of juice from us to make a sparkling Sangiovese. That amount would come out to about a case, which would be a great way to celebrate the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008.