Grape to Glass : The Growing Season
While the fall harvest is certainly a busy time of year for California’s wine-grape growers, winegrowing is a year round process. Each season, growers have specific sets of practices and maintenance they must carry out in the vineyards to ensure the highest quality grapes possible.
Photo credit: Russian River Valley (Warren H.W. White)
Budbreak
The first appearance of new buds, which burst open and tiny green tissue is visible.
Spring
Springtime and its more moderate temperatures cue the vines to wake from their winter naps. Tiny buds begin to appear along the vines and welcome green shoots, a phenomenon known as budbreak. The young buds are extremely sensitive, so growers keep a close watch on the temperature, particularly at night, to make sure they aren’t damaged by frost.
Growers go to great lengths to protect their vines from frost, with special alarms set to alert them when temperatures dip below freezing. When this happens, a variety of techniques are used to “heat up” the vineyard, including wind machines which circulate warm air downward and sprinklers that coat young shoots with a protective layer of water. As spring progresses and temperatures continue to rise, flowering begins, and growers are busy training and tying vines to the trellises by hand. Guiding the vines along these trellis systems allows the grape clusters to get just the right amount of sunlight and air circulation.
