Harvest Beginnings, October 2, 2009
It has been a blustery, rainy day, but now the sun has gingerly appeared and is shining on the metal posts of our new Riesling vineyards on the first slopes to the south. In the background, the trees are still very green, but if you look carefully, you can see the beginnings of orange on the maples, the first to show their fall colors. I’ve just cut some oregano and thyme for the coq au vin I am making and I filled my sweatshirt, kangaroo-pouch style, with Seckel and Bosc pears from the espaliered trees in the orchard. Sounds blissful and pompous!

The harvest started last week, first with the Marechal Foch, whose dark, small berries were sweet despite the less-than-congenial summer for ripening grapes. We knew that they were sweet – and the crows discovered them first. Then Ron set up the campaign to discourage the birds from nibbling – a multi-variable approach: cannons (sporadic booms which are eventually not so surprising and if you walk near the gas tank, you can hear the click which will warn you that the boom is coming), the mylar balloons in yellow, red, or black with large, owl-like eyes that are meant to remind the birds of the owl’s carnivorous nature, mylar strips that wave and crinkle and are like chalk squeaking on a chalk-board to birds, and finally, the bird distress calls – all signals that maybe they don’t want to be there…

We are hoping for Indian summer weather to continue to ripen the grapes while the leaves on the vines are still green and can process nutrients. The Niagaras are harvested, many sold to a winemaker near Philadelphi, and the rest for our winery. The Traminette is beginning to ripen and I noticed that they had been de-leafed. Fred explained when I asked that yes, deleafed on just one side of the wire. When I asked why, it was because the winemaker had requested that only the east side of the fruit be exposed so that the sun could “caress” the fruit (!).