Wine
What the Vines Tell Us
September 8, 2022
From variances in sunshine, rain, and temperature to more extreme weather events like hail and frost, the characteristics of a given growing season have a direct and dramatic effect on the vines that grow the wines we love.
Keeping these vines in the correct conditions to produce the best possible fruit for the wine being made is a delicate balance, but at every milestone in the growth cycle there are signs from the vine to guide the vineyard manager and winemaker’s decisions. Become an expert at reading them, and you’ll find every walk through a vineyard becomes a fascinating window into the challenges and triumphs that produced the wine you’re about to taste.
It helps to understand the vine’s general life cycle “checkpoints,” so here’s an overview along with some tips on what to look for the next time you’re taking a vineyard tour.
Harvest: Game On!
(The Northern Hemisphere’s current stage!)
Keeping these vines in the correct conditions to produce the best possible fruit for the wine being made is a delicate balance, but at every milestone in the growth cycle there are signs from the vine to guide the vineyard manager and winemaker’s decisions. Become an expert at reading them, and you’ll find every walk through a vineyard becomes a fascinating window into the challenges and triumphs that produced the wine you’re about to taste.
What to look for when you visit: Visiting a winery during harvest is an exciting time. You might see picking teams, harvesting machines, or large baskets or bins filled with grapes being delivered to the winery’s “crush pad” - however, it is important to note a lot more of the grape harvesting happens after the sun goes down or before it rises. The crush pad is where the cellar team will process the grapes for fermentation. Ask your host to point out the tasks in the crush pad assembly line. Which job would you want to be assigned?
Winter Dormancy: Time To Rest
Harvest signals to the vine that its job for the season is done. As the days get shorter and cooler, the vine begins to prepare for dormancy, photosynthesizing as long as it can and then finally letting its leaves fall. Sugars from photosynthesis will be converted to starch that’s stored in the plant and fuels the start of the next growing season. So in a sense, the next vintage has already begun.
What to look for when you visit: Have the leaves changed their color or fallen from the vines yet, and can you see vineyard crews taking advantage of this calm moment to mend posts and clean things up before the weather gets too cold? Ask your host how the harvest went for the team. The post-harvest reprieve is as refreshing for the winery staff as it is for the vines themselves, and a welcome chance for everyone to reflect on the season’s hard work.
Winter Pruning: Preparing for the Season
The days are getting longer, the soil and air are getting warmer, and it’s almost time for the vine to wake up for the season. Before it does, though, vineyard crews have a critical task: pruning the vine to set it up for an ideal crop level and shape for the year to come. An expert pruner can quickly assess a vine’s health and how much growth it produced in the previous year, cross-check it with any new goals for the coming season, and make quick decisions about which growth on the vine can be removed and what should stay––and often in just seconds per vine.
The well-pruned vine is set up for success when it’s positioned to produce the correct amount of fruit in the correct structure (taking into account how much the vines will shade each other, wind patterns, and what time of day the sun will hit the grapes, for example) for the site’s unique needs.
What to look for when you visit: Vineyard crews hard at work, shears in hand. Few guests ask for vineyard tours this time of year, but despite the sparse appearance of the vines, it's a fascinating time that’s worth bundling up for if you have the opportunity. Ask your host if they’re pruning earlier or later than usual these days due to the effects of climate change, or find out how long it takes vineyard workers to become so skilled at this mentally and physically demanding task.
Bud Break: The Vine’s Alarm Clock
The middle of spring (usually March or April in the Northern Hemisphere, September or October in the Southern) signals to a vine that the growing season is about to begin, and those first hard nodes that appear on the vines begin to unfurl into green buds. This is an exciting time––the grower can make their first predictions about the timing of harvest, which is roughly 100 days from bud break depending on the region and site––but also an extremely vulnerable one.
A late-spring frost during or after bud break can damage or destroy the tiny buds. Vines are highly motivated to bear fruit, however, when this happens, they’ll produce secondary and tertiary buds to compensate for the loss.
What to look for when you visit: The beautiful first buds of the new season. Are they tightly closed or starting to unfurl? Ask: Has the spring been unusually warm, cold, or pretty normal? A warmer season signals the vine to push buds early, while less favorable weather encourages them to wait.
Flowering and Fruit Set
It’s prime time, the sun is shining, and daylight hours are reaching toward their peak. The vine, now sporting fast-growing foliage, is directing its energy to the critical task of pollination and the production of fruit. The buds produce delicate flower clusters that will then bloom and develop berries after pollination is complete. Grapevines can self-pollinate, so they don’t need bees or wind to assist, but they do need favorable weather.
A phenomenon known as “shatter” can occur during this time when experiencing cooler spring days. Grape “shatter” are clusters that fail to develop due to an incomplete pollination. Flowering and fruit set usually occur from mid-April to June in the Northern Hemisphere and mid-October through December in the Southern.
What to look for when you visit: Flowering grape clusters are called “inflorescences.” Look closely. Do the tiny, closed berries have little brown caps? They need to lose those to complete flowering, and vineyard managers often describe the state of the flowering phase in terms of the percent of “cap fall” they observe. Ask: Are there any notable weather challenges during flowering in this region?
Veraison: Grapes in Full Color
It’s pretty amazing to see how quickly the vine goes from tiny cluster formation to that moment when the first clusters begin to soften, plump up and change color. The final countdown to harvest begins now. That first glimpse of color change in the grapes––red grapes will turn dark, while white grapes will lighten––signals to the winemaker a mixture of excitement and, naturally, a bit of anxiety as they take their cue to get the crew and cellar ready to receive grapes.
The winemaking team will begin taking vineyard samples shortly after veraison for analysis to monitor the grapes’ progress toward ripeness.
What to look for when you visit: Note how far along the grapes are. Is just one berry per cluster starting to turn? Or are the clusters plump, with few of the harder green berries remaining? Ask what the cellar team is working on right now to make sure they’re ready for action when harvest comes. There may be harvest interns arriving from fascinating locations around the world—“working harvest” is a classic rite of passage in the wine trade.
We hope this journey from grape to glass sheds light on the tremendous work and care of our winery partners, winemakers, vineyard teams, volunteers, and so many more that all have an integral piece of the vine's ongoing growth and success to present us with one of a kind wines.
Learn more about our partners wine growing and making processes through a guided tasting experience with one of our sommeliers.
