We started the season with very cool weather but the temperatures in the last few weeks are moving this vintage to a warmer place. We are still two to three weeks behind a “normal season”, depending on the variety, but it is refreshing to finally start seeing some colored berries showing up, which means veraison is near by, and the berry ripening phase is about to begin.
We have a beautiful crop out there, definitely bigger than last year, so the challenge will be to balance our canopy surface area to our fruit mass ratio, in order to properly ripen our fruit. Some varieties need more hanging time than others, and certainly late varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon are more of a concern than whites, or early reds like Pinot Noir and Merlot.
We also have beautiful canopies out there which means that, if the weather allows it, we shouldn’t have any problems ripening an average crop. That being said, let’s hope what’s left of this vintage will bring us a long, Indian summer, and fingers crossed, an October free of frosts.
At the moment our crews are doing cluster thinning in red varieties to regulate our crops. White varieties to follow.
Matías Kúsulas Head Viticulturist & Winemaker