It is getting on towards the end of June and the vineyards are done blooming. I get to see Pepper Bridge Vineyard on a pretty regular basis, basically everyday, so it is fun to see how the bloom moves along.
Each varietal blooms at a different pace, and different areas of the vineyard move along quicker than others. Most notably, the sections of vineyard adjacent to the asphalt driveway are the quickest to bud out and the quickest to bloom. So it is easy to see all of the various stages of bloom all at the same time within the vineyard just by walking a little bit. The blooms themselves are not very impressive. Even when fully flowering the blooms are easy to miss, they look a bit more like white hairs than flowers.
Grape vines are pretty amazing plants in that they don't need any assistance from insects because they are self pollinating. Once the flowers are pollinated the grapes set and little bb sized fruit starts to grow. The blooms are all finished in Pepper Bridge Vineyard and the fruit is set. It appears that the fruit has set pretty evenly given that we had a bit of damage from cold weather in the winter.
Jean-François is looking forward to a nice yield this fall. In July the vineyard crew will go through and start the process of thinning out the clusters, grapes that did not set properly, and clusters that are in the wrong spots on the vine. So for now the grapes will be left alone to grow. The crew will be out in the vineyard doing some lateral thinning of leaves to give the clusters more room, air, and sunlight to get growing. We just need some more warm sunny days to get things going.
It is getting on towards the end of June and the vineyards are done blooming. I get to see Pepper Bridge Vineyard on a pretty regular basis, basically everyday, so it is fun to see how the bloom moves along. 
Each varietal blooms at a different pace, and different areas of the vineyard move along quicker than others. Most notably, the sections of vineyard adjacent to the asphalt driveway are the quickest to bud out and the quickest to bloom. So it is easy to see all of the various stages of bloom all at the same time within the vineyard just by walking a little bit. The blooms themselves are not very impressive. Even when fully flowering the blooms are easy to miss, they look a bit more like white hairs than flowers. 
Grape vines are pretty amazing plants in that they don't need any assistance from insects because they are self pollinating. Once the flowers are pollinated the grapes set and little bb sized fruit starts to grow. The blooms are all finished in Pepper Bridge Vineyard and the fruit is set. It appears that the fruit has set pretty evenly given that we had a bit of damage from cold weather in the winter. 
Jean-François is looking forward to a nice yield this fall. In July the vineyard crew will go through and start the process of thinning out the clusters, grapes that did not set properly, and clusters that are in the wrong spots on the vine. So for now the grapes will be left alone to grow. The crew will be out in the vineyard doing some lateral thinning of leaves to give the clusters more room, air, and sunlight to get growing. We just need some more warm sunny days to get things going.
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