Wine Grape Harvest 2019 Pt 2
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. As always, a crop’s yield and quality are heavily dependent on the weather. And that holds true for Washington’s wine grape growers as well.
Steve Warner, President of the Washington Wine Commission, says a mid-October frost hit before all the 2019 grapes were in …
WARNER … “The vast majority of the smaller, mid-sized wineries that make more kind of boutique-style wines, that crop their fruit at lower tonnage per acre, they were pretty much all in and it didn’t really impact at all, for the most part. So, we’re hoping that this year will be a rebound year on at least yields, but we’ll see how that goes, but so far we’re off to a great start.”
And when it comes to Washington’s most harvested grape, Warner says …
WARNER … “Cab is still King and it’s been, as you know, over the last decade that’s changed quite a bit. We used to be predominantly white. Now we’re predominantly red. About 60% of our fruit that gets processed every year is red, and of the overall, or the total grape harvest, nearly 30% is Cabernet Sauvignon.”
That, Warner says, in our developing industry, is not too surprising …
WARNER … “No, not at all and it’s actually one of the key kind of good reasons to experiment in Washington because we’re still relatively new to the wine world. And, you know, we’ve been at this, our first AVA was established in 1983 and you compare that to old world regions of France and Italy and Spain, they’ve been at this for 23 or 24 generations.”
Tune in tomorrow for more on our 2019 grapes and the high-quality wine they create.
####
BL: Welcome back to another “Fruit Bites” brought to you by Valent U.S.A. With us as always is Valent’s Allison Walston. And this week Allison, you’re going to tell us about the Bud to Box campaign.
AW: This bud to box campaign focuses primarily on the apple industry where we have developed over 20 conventional, organic and sustainable crop management solutions. Apples just highlight how the Valent Group Companies can offer products all the way from when the apples are in the bud stage to until they reach the box.
BL: Really? The entire life of the apple?
AW: We think about all the hurdles that apple can meet from before that bee pollinizes the flower until the consumer takes a bite. From delayed dormant bud applications of Esteem to combat San Jose scale to mid-season apple thinning sprays to get that perfect size apple all the way to collaborating with our sister company providing post-harvest solutions for apple storage. We are there…
BL: from bud to box.
BL: Well, thanks Allison. Join us again next time for Fruit Bites, brought to you by Valent. Until then, I’m Bob Larson.
