Hot tin roof time! Harvest’s fixed for the Mad Angies. It’s going to be the date we first though of, Sunday 4th October. They’re looking fantastic except for a few bunches where the wasps made inroads. But this final ripening stage, oh yes, it’s a dangerous time for a grape. Round here the hazards are wasps, flies, blackbirds, pheasants, pigeons, squirrels, badgers, hail and botrytis. Vinegrowers are mad, bad and dangerous to know this time of year.

We seem to have seen off the worst of the wasp attack though. Caught several thousand using sugar-syrup-made-on-the-stove-baited winebottles, hung on the row-ends. And, sadly, some hornets too. Hornets are friends. They seem to go into the bottles to eat the wasps rather than the syrup - we don’t see them on the grapes. But they get trapped, just the same. 

We tried some commercial yellow wasp trap things that you fit to a plastic bottle. They worked OK and with less hornets in the traps we made with them because the entry is smaller. But, well, we’ve just got more wine bottles lying around than plastic bottles so mostly it’s wine bottles that festoon our vineyard.

Wasp numbers are waning  now with cooler weather. So we didn’t have to bring the harvest forward - the grapes aren’t ripe enough anyway. We’ll be able to have our stall at Weston Super Food Fest next weekend after all.

But the question was, should we leave it till 11th? We always harvest on a Sunday, using volunteers as we do. Sugars are rising slowly, currently mid-50s Oechsle, so they wont reach our target 70 for this variety by 4th  But the acids are dropping quite fast, down to 11 g/l from 12.5 over 5 days. Having enough acid is critical to making an attractive wine from Madeleine and we don’t want it below about 8.5 at harvest. You’re not allowed to add acid in the EU, unlike in newer wine regions. And the grapes are looking and tasting more mature than the sugars suggest. So on balance, we’ve plumped for 4th though it was a bit of a toss-up. Time will tell whether that was right.

Meanwhile the Kernling hasn’t even turned colour - latest ever. In 2012 it was 19th Sep. Hmmm...Will we pick it at all?

Good fun at the Stogumber Music Festival Food and Drink Showcase. A LOVELY drive straight over the Quantock hills, past sheep, cattle and ponies wandering over the road, and then some terrific music just next to us. Including a harpist!

And I finally got round to the labels for our 2014s. I wanted to try out the black design we used for the Barrel Matured 2013 for the Jane’s. But the rest of the family weren’t convinced. So ... er, well, stalemate. And then, a light bulb moment. Two versions. Customers can choose the one they prefer! Real-time market research?

A ravishing misty morning took me out at dawn last Sunday with the Nikon. Spiders’d been busy! (and note the vineyard cat). Photos above and below.