From mid-August to early November, Long Island’s vintners live on tenterhooks: will the ripening grapevines, after a year of loving care, bring their crops to perfect ripeness, or will Mother Nature force a premature harvest with an angry flock of birds, infestations of mildew ignoble “sour” rot, or a lashing hurricane?
Until all the grapes are safely burbling in vats, it is too soon to say what the quality of the vintage will be.
Growers who are paid by the weight of grapes harvested per acre will urge winemakers to pick early so as to maximize the yield of sound fruit from healthy vines. But winemakers like to wait for the perfect moment—a moment that may never come if calamity intrudes. Even if the grower and winemaker work as a team, there... more
Until all the grapes are safely burbling in vats, it is too soon to say what the quality of the vintage will be.
Growers who are paid by the weight of grapes harvested per acre will urge winemakers to pick early so as to maximize the yield of sound fruit from healthy vines. But winemakers like to wait for the perfect moment—a moment that may never come if calamity intrudes. Even if the grower and winemaker work as a team, there... more
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