Quite a year so far, following very dry winter, the season started great with just in time budding which went without any cold days or freezing temperatures unlike 2017 season, but we got unusually cold and rainy May right around flowering and that messed with a setting of our Merlot quite a bit, effect is that I am totally reconsidering pruning of Merlot and already considering conversion to different style at least few rows for the following seasons.
On the opposite side, Plavina and Babić went through crazy May weather without a hitch, native grapes at their finest. May to June went with a flick of a switch from ice cold to the blazing heat since we had spikes of 37-28 degrees Celsius through the middle and last days of June and some very hard lateral removal days, due heat everything was slowed down in the vineyard but the effect was good on vineyard health and low disease pressure, at least something…
July got us some relief and few welcoming showers of rain in an overall very dry year. Veraison was around two weeks later than season 2018 and we started to notice the first color change right on the end of July and beginning of August who brought again heat wawes and some freak weather with showers of rain. September finally arrived, first with weather change and thirty liters of rain, but currently is sunny with temperatures around 27-30 degrees Celsius with a promising forecast. Sidenote, I should really invest in a good weather station…
First in is Syrah and already looking very promising with largest sugar levels we got for Syrah so far. Crushed on 09.09.19 I left it through two days of cold soak and now the natural fermentation is starting to kick in the temperature up. I have left about 8-10% of whole clusters in the bin and patiently awaiting the results. Hopefully, this will be a worthy successor to the 2017 Memento Syrah
Next is probably Merlot Prisbus who is not quite there yet, well maybe next week, the forecast is excellent and extra hang time well needed.
Stay tuned,
Filip