Green Red grapes

Green Red grapes

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
A phone conversation with the executive director of the Idaho Wine Commission. Moya Shatz Dolsby of the Idaho Wine Commission called this year's Wine Harvest the tale of two harvests because of the cold. I asked her exactly what that meant. She got a little iffy. “Everything you say is like tentative. Well, errh. What's the waiting game?

Well, I think it's just more so seeing how it tastes after we make it like it looks OK. But I mean, how are those flavors gonna be? They're definitely not as concentrated. But maybe you have a lighter red style. I don't know. It hasn't happened to us before.

The collective wineries in the state of Idaho are biting their fingernails.

I would say it depends on how the crops the… yield. The vineyards have had lower yields were fine, but the ones that had five six tons an acre, they weren't ripe enough yet as a whole. So if you can say well my rouleau that was crafted two tons and acre three times, make her turn, not be OK. But my neighbor who is cropped at 6 tons didn't look as good.

I'll use the analogy of tomatoes. Tomatoes in a grocery store typically tastes like plastic because they're not vine ripened. Translate that to grapes. If you harvest a grape just a little bit early prior to a frost in order not to lose the grade. Does that affect the flavor? Just like a tomato would be?

Yeah, because it wouldn't be ripe enough. It would taste green. So you can't make wine out of green grapes? Well, you shouldn’t…not recommended.

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