Picking Machines and Rasta Vines
I’ve never seen so many picking machines in Napa before. Part of our tour guide patter explains that most of the Napa grapes are picked by hand, but the recession has changed the price point. The fifty dollar bottle of wine was the main victim of the financial crunch. The winner was the ten to fifteen dollar of wine. This has been a plus for Sonoma where the price point is more reasonable. Of course the difficulty of finding enough skilled people to pick has probably contributed to the proliferation of machines.
The difference between an expensive wine grape and a moderately priced one is a combination of things. Location is a big factor, and in this Napa is especially blessed. Just as important is the number of hands that touch the vine, what is commonly called cropping; pruning, trellising, irrigating and selective harvesting. In 2010 the cool weather sent workers into the vineyards multiple times trying to convince the grapes to ripen and boosting costs by fifty percent. Then, some vineyards ended up with very little, or nothing for their efforts.
This year we noticed a lot more Rasta vines, normally tightly pruned vines with lots of green straggling canes. It may be that growers who were so stung by last year’s expenses are being more conservative in their spending this year. But, when you take that together with the profusion of picking machines in the fields it looks like more growers are pricing their grapes for modestly priced wines.
Alcohol and lipstick are both recession proof products. That’s funny because we write in various places, books, apps and web, that lipstick should be kept out of the tasting room; it interferes with the flavors and is hard to get off of crystal glasses. But when money gets tight people drink cheaper wines.
Even before the early October rains in Napa and Sonoma, harvest projections were down twenty percent thanks to the spring time rains knocking flowers off the bunches. The result has been grapes that have enjoyed more sunlight and air circulation. Even with that I’ve seen grape bunches on the ground, those long foggy mornings have starved the vines of Sunlight so they are thinning bunches to boost the flavors.
The fruit up to this time has been beautiful so the grapes that have come in before the rain should produce wonderful wines. Now, we have to see what the post-rain grapes look like. At least there is lot to talk about this year and 2011 isn’t going to be a boring vintage.
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