Hafner Vineyard - What's New

VERAISON

means Harvest is coming

August 23, 2010

previous | next

Veraison is a French word that California wine growers use. It means the grapes are maturing and showing their ripe colors.

First one or two grapes in a cluster start turning Chardonnay golden or Cabernet red. Then more grapes and more bunches change color so that within two weeks or so only a few grapes remain green. Because morning fog blanketed Sonoma County from mid-June to late August, this year’s crop has ripened more slowly than usual.

At Hafner Vineyard, to help reach veraison, our vineyard team stripped many leaves from the vines’ sides toward the gentle morning sun. On the sides facing the afternoon sun, leaves were left on the vines to help shade the grapes from the day’s hottest hours. In fact, the team hand-positioned some canes from the morning sun side to the afternoon sun side for more shielding of the grapes there.

From veraison until harvest the vines will be generating more nutrients that create sugar in the grapes. At veraison the grapes will measure about 5 percent sugar. By harvest five or six weeks later, the sugar content will have grown to 23 percent or so. Sugar is crucial because it is fermented to create the alcohol of the wines.

After veraison, winemaker Parke Hafner and vineyard manager David Huebel walk through many vineyard rows each week. Using an instrument that measures the sugar in the grapes and tasting grapes from many clusters, they gauge the ripening of the crop and plan for its picking by our mechanical picker.

The latest that we have picked our grapes in the 43 years of Hafner Vineyard was November 1. The grapes were Cabernet Sauvignon, always the last variety to ripen. With heavier rains earlier this year and then the fog, we may exceed November 1 as our last day of harvest. We shall keep our patrons up to date on this farming drama.