Sunday, September 15, 2013

Gris et blanc: Harvest 2013.

Harvest began today, and it was a long day.  Both of Vinoland's white grape varieties are in and are currently having their little bums chilled in preparation for inoculation.  The Pinot grigio crop (I know, I use gris and grigio interchangeably, so sue me) looked fabulous - healthy, tight, juicy clusters.  But hang on a second, have a gander at this cluster, it has both grey (Pinot grigio?) and white (Pinot blanc?) grapes.
This year, a handful of the Pinot grigio vines entirely sported green (white) grapes.  One particular vine had all grey grapes except for the apical shoot position (on just one of it's two fruiting canes) which had two green clusters.  And then there was the cluster above which had about 50% each of both grey and green. 
All grapevines have unique characteristics called transposons, also known as jumping genes, which can express themselves in different growing seasons.  Pinot noir - most likely the parent/origin of Pinots blanc, gris and Meunier - has a really strong proclivity toward spontaneous mutation in the vineyard.  And that's all well and good, I just wasn't prepared for so many instances of the Pinot family's genetic instability in my vineyard.  The grapevines are apparently confused, and so am I.  Oh well, what's new?  Happy harvest!

5 comments:

New Hampshire Wineman said...

Back to the Mendelian inheritance!

Do Bianchi said...

love this photo, Vinogril.

Spontaneous genetic mutation is nothing new, as you note.

But when you see it in the flesh (or in the pulp, as it were), it reminds us of how powerful Nature is and how little we can predict, despite our sciences...

awesome...

Thomas said...

Whenever some geek refers to "that great Pinot I had," I usually respond, "noir, blanc, gris or meunier?"

About Last Weekend said...

I love your pic of grapes, I went into to watch the America's Cup on Sat (or rather watch a screen as there was nothing else to see) and bought some grapes from the Ferry terminal ($9!! bucks!)

Vinogirl said...

NHW: Yes, old Gregor...prefer Gap jeans myself :)

2B: Thanks!

Tomasso: Yes, like the old red, white and blue...The Union Jack? The Tricolour? The Stars and Stripes?

ALW: Thanks!
I'll sell you two bunches for $8.99 :)