Brendan and I took a trip over to the Lane ranch today and found many bunches of rot, but definitely not as bad as last year. I have finally been forceful enough to convince Steve Ryan and Jason and Hank Lane to turn off the water to that vineyard for the next two weeks. We did have a sugar test of obvious ripe bunches from that vineyard, yielding a reading of 24 percent sugar. The vineyard is so inconsistent, bunches could probably range anywhere from 14 to 25 or 26 percent sugar. I'm thinking about sending Brendan off again in a couple of days to cut off more fruit.
Potential rot is obvious to forecast in Zinfandel.
You cannot have bunches close together, you cannot have big bunches, and you cannot be irrigating vines when the bunches are ripening. But is hard to convince growers or vineyard managers when they see all the large bunches and potential benefit from harvesting a big crop. The Simpson Syrah was also checked this morning by Brendan and we had a solid reading of 23.9 brix. Syrah is much more consistent than Zinfandel, and my guess is that there are probably no bunches in that vineyard under 22 percent sugar. Since the acids are starting to fall off, I would like to harvest these grapes this week.