What Does Summertime Bring to California Vineyards?

Pietra Santa Winery, Hollister, CA

Sit back and relax. It’s summertime in the vineyard, and even contemplating the idea requires a chilled glass of a good wine.

The long, sunny days work their magic on the grapes.

In the spring, before the grapes color up (veraison), those vines could be any varietal. But as they ripen under the heat of the sun, you’ll see the purple-red of a Cab or the yellow/green of a Chardonnay begin to show itself.

Summer Work in the Vineyard

While we sit and sip on the veranda, viticulturists are still at work in summer’s vineyards. Cluster thinning is one of their tasks. Workers will go through and cut off clusters that are squeezed together to avoid any quality problems due to mildew or bunching. They don’t do this too early in the summer, though. Thinning early in the growth of the grape can make the remaining berries larger. Since smaller grapes give more richly flavorful fruit, early thinning is avoided.

Another task is thinning for color. As veraison progresses, red wine producers will wait until the grapes have achieved their red color. Then they will remove any that are greenish or not as deep in color as the others. The result will be a harvest of fruit with a consistency of color, a useful tool in winemaking.

Back on the veranda, we’re still enjoying our wine blended with summer. The buzz of bees, the lively flight of a dragonfly, a soft breeze off a creek, colorful butterflies visiting a drip irrigation spot — summer is abundance and beauty in the California vineyard. It is a promise of wonderful wines to come.

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