It has been a coolish summer so far, a couple of hot days and then the rain coming in from the north. Hot and humid tropic rain which we all are wary off, for with it often follows the mildews; powdery and downy. This year, so far we have been lucky, the odd leaf showing signs of downy mildew but nothing more. We check the fruit every couple of days for any sign of disease and measure the ripeness of the fruit. The Sangiovese is, not surprisingly, less ripe than it was at the same time last year while the Pinot Grigio is about the same. The Sangiovese is at 8.6 baume and the Pinot Grigio at 10.9 baume, one degree of baume is equivalent to one degree of alcohol so you can see the Sangiovese has a long way to go. The cropping levels on both are good and the fruit is in very good condition. This time of the year is all about patience and not panicking, or in the words of the Hitchhiker’s Guide “panic very slowly.” Every time it rains, every cool day, every day it is cloudy, overcast and close we try not to wonder just where the ripening is going to come from. You have to trust what you have done, we have removed leaves from around the fruit, rolled the canopy onto the top wire so we have plenty of leaves to drive the ripening and the fruit condition is good. The worry always is the the fruit condition falls away before the fruit is ripe enough, lets not think about that yet. The Pinot Grigio is a couple of weeks away and that will be one thing off, one wine in the tank and not in the vineyard, and no reason to think that a long cool ripening period might not just be the thing to produce a fantastic cool climate Sangiovese. So come on vintage 2015 lets see what it’s all about.