Bud burst and flowering book-end Spring, bud burst at the beginning of spring, flowering at it’s conclusion. Bud burst and flowering are critical stages in in the yearly cycle of the vine, adverse weather, pests and disease can destroy a years crop if they strike during either. Frost during bud burst is many growers nightmare, fortunately our maritine climate means we are largely frost free, but what we make up in bud burst we loose in flowering.
Grape vines are self pollinating and while they may not need bees they do need benign weather. Grape vines simply cannot tolerate cold, wet and windy conditions during flowering. Cold, wet and windy conditions are precisely what we can experience over spring on the Mornington Peninsula. Sailors call them “line squalls” they are a pattern of weather cells which travel north from Antarctic Oceans one squally storm following another. When they arrive at flowering it can be disastrous and arrive at flowering they frequently do. This year we where lucky, the weather over early and mid-November was sunny and warm. The line squalls came in the first week of December, this week, you take your luck when you get it.
It’s looking good. I want to say, “so far so good,” because that’s how it often feels looking after a vintage. Before you are a winemaker you are a farmer, with all the farmer’s risks and concerns, but this is also where wine in made, meticulously, little by little in the vineyard, much more so than the barrel room.