During the early hours of Friday morning, a huge storm brought the worst hail I have ever seen. Hail stones the size of marbles pelted down for over half an hour.
Unfortunately the vines have sustained so much damage that this year’s crop is pretty much destroyed. It looks like there may be some grapes that survive, I guess this will become clear over the next few days as berries shrivel and fall off, but I doubt there will be enough to produce any wine.
Pretty depressing stuff, but completely unavoidable. I only hope the vines themselves are ok. There is a lot of stem damage too so fingers crossed that next year’s harvest is unaffected.
It made me realise just how stressful it must be to have a commercial vineyard and how easily an entire year’s income can be lost.
So, have you given up? DPS said he had some homebrew from you recently…
Hi Ian, no I haven’t given up, but while the vines are dormant (I hope dormant rather than dead!) over the winter, I have been experimenting with a bit of home brew. Only extract kits at the moment but hoping to venture into the world of all grain brewing soon…