Grape Harvest Part 2

Grape Harvest Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The 2012 grape harvest is underway and it looks like a pretty good if not just a normal crop. Vicky Scharlau, Executive Director of the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers talks a bit about new varieties.

SCHARLAU: I think some of the newer varieties are expressing some additional interest by the wineries. And you know it takes some time and some planning between grower and winery. You can’t just all of a sudden want to make a Grenache or Mourvèdre or a Tempranillo without actually working with a grower to plant them and then wait 3, 4 or 5 years until you get full production.

She says that planning process to start a new variety takes a number of years.

SCHARLAU: But we are seeing more and more acres come in of some of the smaller varieties and some of the ones that I think that your listeners would recognize like Malbec, Petit Verdot which is often a blending variety but we’re seeing some additional varietals of the wine itself. And things like the Tempranillo and the varieties that go into the making of Port.

There is a four-letter word that makes this old broadcaster very happy.

SCHARLAU: I’m seeing as I travel around to wineries and talk to growers more and more wineries that are making a - of course we can’t call it Port but a Port-like product that I happen to think that goes particularly well with Cougar Gold cheese.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.