I love Groth!

I blame it all on my sister, La Serenissima.  She had played a little bit of tennis back in grammar school (with nuns, in habits), but come British summertime she'd be glued to the telly for the entire fortnight of Wimbledon.  I mean, nonstop.  And being 10 years younger, what was a little Vinogirl to do?  La Serenissima soon had me hooked. Nowadays, if I am not watching the news, or something English on PBS, I am watching tennis. Only now, I get to blame my fondness for the game on Vinomaker, who does actually play tennis 3 or 4 times a week.
I tried learning to play tennis a few years ago (a funny story in itself), but I wasn't very good, as, alas, most English people aren't.  So, in lieu of having countrymen and women to cheer on, I gravitated towards the Australian players who were all just so good at chasing that little white ball - I'm showing my age - around the court.
Tennis is hard, really hard, and that's why I appreciate a player like Sam Groth, a current Australian player on the ATP tour.  Sam has the distinction of having the fastest serve on record (that's serve, actually getting the ball in play), which was clocked at an incredible 163.4 mph.
I love tennis.  And I have it on good authority that Sam is, "a big wine fan."
Go Grothy!
Photograph courtesy of Samuel Groth, professional tennis player.

Lovin' Spoonful.

C6H12O6 is the simple fructose molecule. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), transports chemical energy derived from photosynthesis within the cells of grape leaves and converts it into sugar.
Today, we tested the sugar in our Syrah grapes for the first time this year. Using a hand-held optical instrument called a refractometer that measures the percentage of soluble solids in plant juice, we measured the grape sugar content in a random sample taken out in the vineyard. We got a reading of 21.8 °Brix. °Brix (°B) is a scale that is used to measure the percentage of sugar in grape juice.
Many growers still rely on sugar readings to decide when their grapes are ripe. However, sugar readings are only one indicator of grape maturity. There are other qualitative and quantitative evaluations that can best predict the optimal time of harvest. Amongst these are; the softening of the berries, the detachment of skin from pulp, brown seeds and stems, the analysis of pH and titratable acidity (TA).  Oh, and taste. Under-ripe, herbaceous flavours are personae non grata in Vinoland, but a °B reading of 24.5 or better is always welcome.
C6H12O6, the inclusion of which in grape juice makes a finished wine so appealing...and the exclusion of which in diet drinks makes Diet Coca-Cola so unappealing.

Peek-a-boo!

Hello there little vine!
It amazes me how dormant, bench grafted vines muster up the energy, stored in their roots, to push through the mound of earth above them. It's a vineyard miracle :)
When the growth is about another inch long I will gently break down the mounds and let photosynthesis perform it's wondrous wizardry.
Of course this means the vines will need to be irrigated now as they will have almost depleted the moisture content of the soil they were planted in. Vinomaker, where are you?