September is here, and grape harvest will soon be ‘on’ in Vermont vineyards. While the spring was generally wet overall, diligent management should have left you with relatively disease-free grapes and vines. The dry, hot/warm weather since July has been great for grape maturity, but these recent cool nights are likely to slow development.
This year, we will once again be posting fruit / juice maturity values on the UVM Fruit Program website. Watch for that link in the next couple of days, as I just switched computers so still have to load my web editing software. Until then, I am posting a snapshot of the data below. We don’t have all of our cultivars here yet, but you’ll notice some new ones from our new NE-1720 cultivar evaluation trial. We may pick Brianna next week, but the rest have some time to go.
9/9/2019 | Brix | pH | %TA (g/100ml) |
Briana | 16.2 | 2.92 | 0.83 |
Louise Swenson | 17.7 | 2.97 | 1.07 |
Crimson Pearl | 19.0 | 3.02 | 1.36 |
Itasca | 23.0 | 3.11 | 1.19 |
Petite Pearl | 17.7 | 2.99 | 1.15 |
St. Peppin | 18.3 | 2.98 | 1.50 |
Verona | 15.9 | 2.78 | 1.63 |
Data collected at UVM Horticulture Research & Education Center Vineyard, South Burlington, VT. Accumulated degree days (base 50°F, BE model) since April 1 = 2118. |
How do you assess grape maturity using juice data? Please see our relatively new fact sheet, Pre-Harvest Winegrape Juice Testing. That sheet also contains some target values for when to harvest each of the winegrape cultivars in our vineyard.
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