Update #6 - Harvest time!

September 22nd was the day of Harvest! It had been down to about -2 C a couple of nights earlier and we were too nervous to wait any longer, for fear of the grapes being ruined, either through the birds eating them, or that they would just shrivel up. At this point, the grapes were very sweet and so we went ahead and picked. We had a huge harvest of just over 600 grams (1.5 lbs) and took us all of 10 minutes to pick! As there was not enough fruit to complete a recipe for wine, I obtained another 3.5 lbs of Concorde grapes and blended them in to the crush on Oct 2/09. So, the results of our labour for 2009 are in a one gallon jug in the basement, and I'm hoping that it should be ready for us to taste around the end of March 2010. Interestingly enough, this would be about 1 year to the day that Glen and I discussed this venture over a couple of beers in the curling club!

Update #5 -Blue clusters

During the month of September, excellent weather persisted. We were so lucky in our first year, lots of warm days and evenings and a good amount of rain. The grapes continued to ripen but were still a little tart to the taste until that last two weeks of September. Near the middle of the month we began discussing an appropriate date to pick. Marty and Marie Bohnet from the Cypress Hills winery in Maple Creek had advised us to wait until just after the first frost. So we waited.....

Vineyard update #4 -Growing and Inspecting

During August, excellent growing conditions persisted. We decided to install some landscape fabric to keep the grass and weeds down, so that the vines would not have competition. By the end of the month, the grapes were larger and were starting to contain some blue coloration to them.

Vineyard update #3 - Growing Greenies

During July, our little charges begain to grow like crazy! We had warm weather,
quite a lot of rain (in future I will record the exact amounts -didn't occur to me this year - drat) and long days. In short, perfect conditions! During one of our Tuesday "vineyard inspection" nights, Glen pointed out that we had tiny little fruit clusters coming out! They were small and very green, but it was fruit, and a bit unexpected but very pleasing!