It is the day before the autumnal equinox and I haven’t picked grape one. A week ago I was sweating bullets over this, in spite of it being cold outside–in fact because it was cold outside. I have been mostly tweeting it up from the vineyard this year, but it is time to make a more permanent record here in the blog.
2011 is a cold, late vintage
A week ago it was clear we were at least a month behind what I would think of as normal. In the middle of September I had LOTS of green berries in every variety at the Estate vineyard. Terrifying, truth be told. Today was a better day. 
I spent a couple of hours leaf thinning in the Pinot with the crew this morning and checking ripeness by taste. Normally I would not leaf thin in the fruit zone at our vineyard, but this is not a normal year.
We are having a very welcome–and long overdue–heat spell and it really has moved things along. Compared to last week, the crop looks much better colored and more uniform. Also, with the leaf thinning we can see much more of it. 
This is the Haynes Vineyard Selection block of Pinot above, showing a decent set and moderate consistency of color cluster to cluster. With the increase in uniformity, the potential yield looks more like over a ton per acre, rather than the utterly dismal prediction I was making last month of under 0.5 t/ac. Below is the Clone 777 Pinot block; I’m estimating the yield at less than in the HVS block but still respectable. 
The weather forecast yesterday called for rain Sunday-Monday as a deep trough (over 4 std. devs. from the mean!) was progged to tap sub-tropical moisture from a Pacific typhoon and sweep across our region. It was with great relief that I woke this morning to a forecast of a stronger high pressure ridge persisting and driving the rain probabilities north of us. Hoping for more of same.
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Westwood Winery
by Thomas Pellechia
21 Sep 2011 at 08:27
For three years out of the past five, the Finger Lakes harvest has been either neck-n-neck with your part of the woods or ahead…this years is one of the two “aheads.”
It was a hot, dry summer and we have yet to receive that first early night of frost, which is unusual–well, it used to be unusual.
by John M. Kelly
21 Sep 2011 at 10:07
“…used to be unusual.” What are you trying to say here, Thomas? That climate change is not a figment of our collective imagination? That even if it is real, it’s god’s will and proof that the fantasies of the end times death cult are coming true? Well, I never…
by Thomas Pellechia
21 Sep 2011 at 13:54
Hah! You found me out, John.
Now, about that donation to my cult…
Then again, while researching old newspapers for my next book, I have come across many climate updates concerning grape growing in the Finger Lakes region between 1915 and 1941. As far as I can tell, the swings and madness in climate here has always been what it is, with the exception that we do indeed seem to have longer growing seasons in this century than the growing seasons between the above years. I am convinced.