Playing the waiting game....

It's just a game of patience!

We are now more or less as ready as we're going to be for the 2008 harvest, the only thing that we're waiting for now are the grapes, or should I say the optimum moment to pick them.

The 2008 growing season has been tricky to say the least, with plenty of unsettled weather right from the very start. A late flowering this year was of course an early indicator that the harvest would be a late one too - viticultors usually calculate a period of 100 days from flowering to harvest - a formula that is nearly always very accurate.

In the period just before last year's harvest we were blessed with hot sunshine, but this year is a little different. Whilst we are currently enjoying a few days of sunshine, the daytime temperatures are cooler than in 2007, reaching only the low to mid 20's (68-77°F). The other difference is the presence of rain, which regrettably seems to re-appear every few days. Naturally, the result of this changeable weather is that the final maturation is slower than we would like, and so we simply have to sit back and wait for the sugar, pH and acidity levels to reach the correct balance.

Related to this 'grape-watch' is my other favourite past-time at this time of year - weather forecasts (unfortunately not an exact science even in this day and age). I follow about four or five different websites on an hour-by-hour basis, and unbelievably, it is actually quite rare that they agree with one another! Perhaps my best option is just to look out of the window.....