Busting Vineyard Myths

[Rebel Rose]

From Wines & Vines: Busting Vineyard Myths

Does dropping fruit concentrate the rest?

Does water stress improve quality? Does irrigating reduce quality?

In the first address . . . Anderson investigated the common practice of removing grape clusters "to concentrate the rest."

He noted that it's commonly believed that a vine can only ripen so much fruit, and that berries that don't quickly color at veraison never catch up to ripen with the rest. His research found otherwise. "No matter how much fruit is removed, there is no significant difference in Brix at harvest," he said. And that goes even for the pea-size fruit. "If we removed 40% of the fruit at veraison, the situation actually got a little worse. The fruit that would have been dropped had the same Brix as the rest."

He admitted that the grapes left might not taste exactly the same. "The fruit has sensory differences, but we don't know if that affects the wine. Is it worth the lost fruit?" he asked. Unfortunately, the data presented were only for one year, and the project has not been resumed. Anderson is seeking funding to continue the studies.

While not directly related to dropping fruit, we had always assumed that it was a truism that first crop, second crop, and third crop berries would not ripen at the same time. Last year, with cooler fall temperatures, we were a little worried about getting the pH up there with the sugars, and we had 2-3 levels of cluster ripeness--some ripe, some lavender, some way behind. We asked old vine grower Benito Dusi to look at the vineyard and he said (in his calm, Italian way), "Just wait . . . just wait." Twice Beni came to the vineyard and advised us to wait . . . not to drop fruit or pick too soon. Amazingly, the ripe clusters held at an appropriate sugar level, and the second and third layers caught up! We did not lose any of our (already low tonnage-per-acre) harvest, and all the fruit was high quality.

Maybe these "myths" come from 1950's/1960's agricultural "science"?