Every year it seems to be the same, rain, rain, and more rain. It is almost as though some entity, unknown to mere mortals, decides the sugars are not allowed to reach an acceptable level. In many ways, this is somewhat like running a water hoses into the wine vat. You see, we try to make a wine without irrigation, a wine made by natural methods using the wild vine yeasts, a wine not laced with chemical to prolong it's shelf life. Every time it rain falls, the vine takes up the moisture, and thus dilutes the sugar level in the berries. This in turn causes a lower conversion rate of sugar into alcohol, resulting in a thin wine without body.
The real frustration of poor results after the pruning, care, netting and so on is hard to explain to anyone who has not experienced it. You may think that is all part of farming, this of course is true, but it does not make it any better to bear. Last year a wasp attack sucked the crop dry, before we were able to pick. They came in swarms straight through the bird netting.Fortunately, this year we set dozens of traps, and caught bucket loads. I exaggerate not, we must have caught tens of kilos of wasps, at least they make good compost. The strange thing about wasps is they seem to undergo a change of diet throughout the summer, at times they crave sugar, at others rotten meat. Still, while they are gauging themselves they are too blotted to sting.
In the meantime, all we can do is clean out the press and wait.
No comments:
Post a Comment