Sunday Rainy Sunday

The Western Cape experienced fairly heavy rain this past Sunday. With sugars, especially with the white varietals, already high there are some major risks at play. They are namely grape rot and dilution of flavours.

Backsberg's vineyards were not overly stressed (ie. in need of water) in the run up to Sunday and so fortunately the risk of the vines slurping (literally) up all the water and diluting flavour concentration, is low. To combat the risk of rot, we are going through our white blocks and taking out any excess leaves from underneath the canopy and from within the canopy itself (Clive, the farm manager, calls it a milking-the-cow action). This action is vital because we don't want to go and over expose the bunches to the sun. The key idea is opening the vines up sufficiently to allow the wind to dry off any moisture and reduce the risk of rot. The first vineyard on the agenda this morning was a block of viognier. I tried to take the pic above, kneeling on the ground. One can see the slightly exposed bunches from below with the leaves discarded on the ground.

Fortunately, the south-easter is playing its part this morning in drying things up. Looking at the weather report, temperatures are in the mid 20s this week which is also good, because high temperatures serve to accelerate any cases of rot. So, things are looking postive. Here is a fetching pic from the viognier looking out over vallery towards Paarl Rock. SB