Taste Grapes Before Harvest – Checks Maturity of Merlot
http://www.ovineyards.com/public_html/blog/blog.html
So I know this is really late, but this is a video about tasting grapes. It was almost harvest time at O’Vineyards when I filmed this so we were tasting the grapes hoping that they’d be sweet and mature enough to send to the lab for some official results.
The video gives some wine maker insights from Ryan O’Connell into the complicated task of eating and tasting a grape. Okay, so it’s pretty simple, but there’s a video for you anyway.
It turns out that the Merlot is in fact ready for lab analysis and the ICV lab returned something like 14.4 potential sugar so we were ready to harvest that Merlot.
If you want to see a cool explanation of refractometers you should check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhnZETxe1jk
- mroconnell
Maybe you can make a card with grapes on it. That would be cute.
Thanks so much. I’ve been trying to make a good popup card for a while and it looks like you’ve got it down. I’ll let you know if/when I finally make a cool one.
Thanks, Dave!
The vine I’m in front of is supposedly 28 years old. But I just got the vineyard in ’04 so don’t know for sure. But it acts like a plant that age.
We ended up harvesting this Merlot last Saturday (October 4-6). It came in right around 14.5-15 potential alcohol.
I’m happy to hear you’re harvesting too and I look forward to the videos!
I enjoyed your video.
Hi mroconnell
The video is very informative, and the clusters look really good. It is a good point that sometimes we can pull the berry samples from the same location on the cluster. It is also a good description of some of the flavors that you get from the seeds that indicate the harvest is near. About how old are the vines ? How long after this video did you harvest ? We harvested today.
Thanks very much for mentioning my site at the end.
Dave
One Acre