Latest southern WI vineyard

[WI_Wino]

Sunday morning Marquette was at 21, petite pearl 19

Wi_Wino,
Have you checked sugars since Tuesday? Just by the taste test, I’m still a couple weeks out from harvest at least. Up by Lacrosse.

 

[WI_Wino]

About - 40F for at least one night. Plus a cold spring.

Looking good. How cold did you get this past Winter? I remember the first Winter after planting my Marquette and Noiret we had a 3 day cold snap and got down to -20F for three solid days straight. They all came back the next Spring like "is that all you got Mother Nature"....

Have not seen anything that cold since then.

 

[WI_Wino]

Permethrin really knocked the Japanese beetles down for us. It appears to have a couple week residual affect as well.

Another thought on vineyard. . . . . with spraying JB this year it became obvious that there in value on spacing crops so it is possible to harvest berries after grapes have been sprayed.

 

[WI_Wino]

Brix still at 20-21 marquette and 19 - petite pearl. I think my first rounds of readings I grabbed the most ripe ones. Now I'm taking more of cross sample. The waiting is excruciating.

 

[havlikn]

Yes and now we have colder weather to delay ripening to allow the coins birds and every creature to feast. Good luck on harvest. We are still a couple weeks out by Port Washington

 

[WI_Wino]

Forecasted highs this week are back in the mid 80s. Should help move this process along I think.

 

[VillaVino]

Tested on Sunday.
Marquette's were 20.0 with a pH of 2.81
The rest were around 15.0
This rain will not help. Looking to harvest on the 21st in central western WI.
I'll be in the Monroe area this weekend. Are you close?

 

[balatonwine]

Marquette's were 20.0 with a pH of 2.81

From the ripeness formula, brix * ph^2

20 * 2.81^2 = 157.

Not even close to the ideal number of 260 for a red wine.

My advice is let it hang. Too often grapes are picked too early out of fear of loosing grapes to weather. But if you can put aside those fears, and pick when ideal or only when conditions really will destroy all the crop (not just part), you may end up with a better wine (maybe less wine, due to weather, but a better wine).

 

[VillaVino]

Thank you very much. I just started using my Vinmetrica 200 this year for pH levels so this helps. This year was about as "ideal" as I've seen in my ten years of growing grapes right up to the rain that started over the past weekend and continues at this very moment. Thx

 

[DriftlessDoc]

Thank you very much. I just started using my Vinmetrica 200 this year for pH levels so this helps. This year was about as "ideal" as I've seen in my ten years of growing grapes right up to the rain that started over the past weekend and continues at this very moment. Thx

Hope you didn’t get too much damage last night. It didn’t hail at our place but the wind and rain was terrible

 

[sour_grapes]

Hope you didn’t get too much damage last night. It didn’t hail at our place but the wind and rain was terrible

Ditto for us. Lots of banging and thumping.

 

[WI_Wino]

Marquette up to 22-23, picking this weekend. Petite pearl up to 19 ish

 

[havlikn]

Hope you don’t get the bad rain as We do by Milwaukee. I would imagine our bricks is going to drop across all of our varietals

 

[VillaVino]

Hope you didn’t get too much damage last night. It didn’t hail at our place but the wind and rain was terrible

I heard Lacrosse area got hail. We did not east of Lax. Just plenty of rain.

 

[VillaVino]

Marquette up to 22-23, picking this weekend. Petite pearl up to 19 ish

Good luck. We will harvest next weekend.

 

[WI_Wino]

Marquette harvested. 12 lbs after destemming. 23 brix. Grapes are in the freezer until we harvest the petite pearl.

 

[VillaVino]

Congrats. It will only get better. I wish my vines were as nice as yours. I’ll have pictures next week if the weather, birds and bugs cooperate.

 

[wood1954]

In waupaca wi I came yesterday after being on vacation for two weeks. While gone it seems the weather was cool and very wet. When I left my Marquette was at 18 brix, when I got back it was only at 20 brix. I harvested anyway as the pressure from wasps, ants and fungus was scaring me. Due to the deer eating most of the flowers in spring I only have 8-10 gallons of must right now about. I took my time and destemmed by hand and removed all berries that had been attacked by bugs etc, should be good tasting wine. The berries tasted ripe just low on sugar maybe due to the 10 inches of rain we got over the last two weeks. The PH was 3.2, I like a higher PH for drinkability so I added 20 grams each of calcium carbonate and potassium bicarbonate and got the PH up to 3.6.. even with that much the flavor is unaffected.. can't wait for next year.

 

[Stressbaby]

The posts here kind of confirm my experience - the critters start getting the fruit at pH of about 2.8 and 18 brix.

 

[BRD]

I harvested my Marquette here in northwestern PA last week. About 60 lbs which is a record for me! Only 20 brix but a stretch of bad weather was forecasted and I think the critters were casing them. pH 3.1 and acid at 1.20 so ameliorated and adjusted to 22.5 brix. Yielded 6 gallons of must. Pressed yesterday as fermentation went quickly... 5 days. Planning on MLF along with juice pails in a couple of weeks. Has any one done amelioration on Marquette with good results? I was concerned acid wouldn’t come down enough on own through primary, MLF and cold stabilization.