By Doug Fabbioli

Jim Law, our vintner guru on the hill at Linden Vineyards, once described the fall season for vintners as “the playoffs”. The growing season has its ups and downs just like a sports season, but you have to stay focused on the game or you may have nothing to harvest. We need to keep our vines healthy and the leaves and fruit disease free. The perfect weather condition is dry with warm sunny days and cool nights. That’s what we are hoping for so we have quality grapes and hopefully, with a lot of work, outstanding wines.

This season has been very challenging. The early heat and drought put tremendous stress on our vines. Both heat and drought are not good for the vines and the people who tend to them.  At my vineyard, we have rather rich soil and the vines were able to get enough water to support the fruit.  But, younger vines needed supplemental watering as the root systems are not fully developed. Manually watering is not always needed, but it should be an option especially with young vines.

In our new planting across the street, the vines have struggled a bit this year. Last year, even though we had some drought conditions, the vines were able to carry fruit and produced some quality wine.  This was possible because it rained last year at the right time and the vines did not suffer. This season, the summer splashes of rain seemed to go either North or South of us leaving a very dry spot in the middle of Luckettsland. We were forced to drop fruit on some vines in order to save the plant, and watered the whole vineyard numerous times. The watering method we use is our 150-gallon sprayer modified to pump water on the ground along the vines as we drive past. Younger vines and thinner soils up on the hill forced us to manually water. We are considering adding irrigation to this vineyard and others with the thinner soil conditions. For decades, drip irrigation was seen as an unnecessary expense on the East Coast, but as we continue to have unpredictable climate conditions, we need to manage this change and make good decisions, both short term and long term.

The grapes are getting closer to ripeness now, and our decisions on when to pick the different fruit will have a big impact on the wines and their styles. When we pick for sparkling wine, we pick a bit earlier than for still wines. These grapes have higher acid that will add to the crisp structure folks appreciate in a classic bubbly.

As we move into picking decisions with our red grapes, we look at the color and ripeness of the seeds as well. Those seeds will stay with the juice through the fermentation process and if the seeds are not ripe the greener tannins can be extracted during fermentation and give the wine a harsher character. Just one more thing to consider…

I like to tell people “You can make bad wine from good grapes, but you can’t make good wine from bad grapes!” Finishing out the season well in the vineyard creates the opportunity to make an outstanding wine in the cellar. Our “playoffs” are built around the many harvest decisions including when to pick, ensuring we pick clean fruit, good handling of that fruit to the crush pad and teamwork to make it all flow through the season. This is my 41st harvest season and I try to keep my cool, make good decisions, and help others to keep cool as well. Be sure to visit us or another local winery during this season. The excitement is in the air!

About the Author: Farmer, winemaker, entrepreneur, educator, and leader, Doug Fabbioli has been accelerating the growth and quality of Virginia’s wine industry since 1997. With his wife Colleen, Doug is the owner/operator of Fabbioli Cellars in Leesburg, VA. He is the founder and director of The New Ag School, which focuses on teaching the next generation of farmers and agriculture-related leaders. No wonder they call Doug Fabbioli the Godfather of DC’s Wine Country.