Harvest starts Wednesday

It’s official: the Merlot’s clocking in between 25 and 27 brix (a measurement of sugar), so it’s time for us to tear off our nerdy glasses and spring into action.

If those are really numbers pulled from a refractometer (a hand-held gizmo that measures sugar by how much it bends light – space age!), they can tend to be a little high. I don’t have enough experience to say that’s a fact, but if that’s at all true, it’s because the average you get from an entire harvest (across rows and rows of plants) can’t be totally replicated with a few hand-picked samples. And at least when I’ve done it, it’s pretty hard not to veer moth-like toward those nice, riper looking clusters, try as you might to be objective.

Anyway, we’ll know soon enough. My ideal is a total brix somewhere in the 25 range, maybe 25.5, but we can totally work with 27 if we need to.

On to the valley of the Yakima!

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