The growers are praying for a September sunny

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The co-owner of the vineyard, The Vine silver Jean-Paul Sawyer hope more sunny days to ripen his grapes.

Yanick Fish

Monday, 28 August, 2017 06:30

UPDATE
Monday, 28 August, 2017 06:30

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DUNHAM | meteorologists provide the sun in the next few days, and the winemakers in quebec cross our fingers that the forecast will materialize. The hot summer and rainy as it was known has contributed to the training of grapes, but the fruit is slow to ripen.

“Nothing is lost yet, but it will be that September is beautiful, summarizes the president of the Vineyard of the gold digger, to Dunham, in the Cantons-de-l’est, Charles-Henri de Coussergues, thoughtfully. We need sun. We’re a good week late on the past few years. “

The sound of a bell is the same everywhere in the province. The harvest, which usually begin at the end of September, will be postponed in October to allow the grapes to be sweeter, which is essential to the fermentation process.

The window of harvest is shrinking so fast if one wants to pick up the grapes before the freeze-up period. The good news is that the cold tends to settle a little later for a few years.

“The month of September is generally drier and more sunny. The frost-free period extends, we can now hope that there was no frost before the week of October 20. If the next few weeks are beautiful, we will have a great season, ” says the co-owner of the vineyard Le Cep money Magog, Jean-Paul Sawyer.

Less sweet

And if it keeps raining ? The winemakers will harvest the grapes are less sweet and less acidic than usual, and they will have to handle it before you turn it into wine. Among the methods used, add some sugar, while others are assemblies with wines from previous years to facilitate the fermentation.

One should also expect to wines having an alcohol content less high due to the large amount of water that is in the grape.

Mold

The rainy summer has not only delayed the ripening of the grapes, it was rotting, a part of the crop of some companies. This is particularly the case of the vineyard Small stones, located in Saint-Paul-d’abbotsford, Montérégie, which has had to divest itself of nearly 100 kg of grape, musty.

“There’s always a little bit. Usually it is the household with the harvest, but this year, because the temperatures are more humid, there has been a lot. We had to do the tour to ensure they do not contaminate other clusters, ” says co-owner Martin Lavertu.

This represents about 1 % of the harvest usual Small pebbles. The loss is not dramatic, but Mr. Lavertu wishes of wall to wall sunshine in order to avoid that other diseases come from damage to his crop.

The wine in Quebec

►66 vineyards

►20 varieties

►1.7 Million of bottles produced

►417 hectares of vines grown

Source : Association des vignerons du Québec