Sampling time

Published on 20 Feb 2019

It’s all about sampling in the vineyard. Dan has been selecting bunches from both sides of the vines (sunny and shady) to get a representative sample of the crop. He then crushes the bunches by hand and uses a refractometer to measure the amount of available sugar in the juice. The sugar roughly equates to the amount of alcohol a wine will have once the juice has been fermented. Grape estimates are also reviewed at the same time, these are calculated by using the average bunch weight x average bunches per vine x vines per hectare x area.
Phew, glad I’m not working any of that out!!