We began harvesting Brianna on Monday, August 17 and the harvest of Edelweiss won’t be far behind. Our Brianna will be used to make a semi-sweet white wine. We only have about 0.6 acres of Brianna so we expect to harvest only about 1,800 pounds of Brianna.
The Edelweiss is another matter. We have 17 acres and theoretically, we should get about 51 tons of Edelweiss. But, this year, the Edelweiss bloomed when it was cold and rainy and we did not get a good pollination and fruit set.
Every year at this time, people ask us if we’d like to see some rain. The answer is emphatically NO! A light rain shower probably wouldn’t do any damage but a soaking rain would have two undesirable outcomes. First, the vines take all of the water that lands on the leaves and also that taken up by the roots and moves it to the grapes. The grapes really can’t expand very fast and with enough water, they will split leaving us open to fungus and insects. You’ve probably seen the same thing happen to your tomatoes in your home garden. The second undesirable outcome is that the vineyard is soggy and it might be several days before we can get back in with our harvester and tractors without tearing it up.
