Wine Grape Harvest Underway in Less than Ideal Conditions

A lot of smoke, excessive heat; these are the conditions under which many wine grape growers have begun harvesting their crop.

WSU Extension Viticulturist Michelle Moyer said the biggest concern is the workers who are already picking white wine grapes.

“People aside, the challenges with high heat is that you can get sunburn when it’s sunny, but I think most of the people’s concerns are that it slows down grape ripening. When you get temperatures at that level, it really can slow down and impact ripening, flavor development and color development on fruit.”

There isn’t much that growers can do about sunburn or protection from the sun at this point. That work is all done in June and July.

The good news is that a wet June did help with creating canopies to provide some protection according to Moyer.

“The nice thing when you deal with a processed fruit product like wine grapes for wine is that there are some challenges that pop up end of season like we’re seeing now, there are many wines that can be used to help ameliorate that post-harvest.”

For Concord grapes, Moyer said these extreme heats are far worse since they are native to cooler temperatures as the canopy shuts down and it slows down ripening.

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