It seemed that summer never wanted to come. With good to very
good winter rains and temperatures the vintage looked great.
It stayed cool right up to the end 18th of January. We even had
some Rain the week before. The gapes looked exceptionally healthy
and the crop was average to big. The heatwave lasted a week and
just never seemed to want to let up.
Then there was a thunderstorm predicted for the weekend of the
9 and 10th of Feb.
This turned out to be rain with the humidity % that you find
in Durban or a rainforest. After a weekend of sauna we ended
up with 40mm of rain on Delheim and 23mm on Vera Cruz farm.
Now what? The vineyards are wet the humidity high and no wind.
Getting the grapes dry was a matter of urgency. We were given
a hint to perhaps blow-dry our vineyards with our spray pumps.
We would run the pups with only the fans blowing air through
the cordons where the grapes are hanging.
After driving through three times
the grapes were dry. Then rain again 2 days later. A mighty
thunderstorm turned into a
wet cold winter rain. What now? I am typing this report and I
wonder how it will be going further. So I will have to wait before
I continue with good or bad news...
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