Happy birthday grapes, it’ll be soon time for the grape harvest.
There is a day and only a day to pick up the grapes. Too early, the grapes wil not be ready, the maturity is too small and we could loose a lot of taste in the juices. Too late, and the grapes will loose all their taste or begin to ferment on the vines.
There are a few methods to decide the date :
- The degree, we press about 15 grapes and see the degree of the juices thanks to a refractometre
- The colour of the pips, green, the grapes arent ready, brown it’s too late. The better colour is red for a perfect result
- How the bay is attached. If the bay falls easily, the grapes are ready to be pressed.
This is an important work for a winegrower, he works all the year to obtain nice fruits given by the nature. He observe the vines during the year, he help the plant to grow up in the better conditions, and third, he always observe its vineyards to support it in its passionnating work of life.
Here is an example of what we make to determine the date of the grape harvest in each parcel.
First you can see the name of the parcels, second the cépage, third the degree (it was one week before the grape harvest), and fourth the pourcentage of pourriture due to the botrytis in each parcel.
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