Better than expected!

Took a sample of 200 Merlot grapes to the winery, and the results were good, but we'll need a visit from Carine to see if they can be picked. She suggested just throwing them in with the Cabernet, as there were very few to pick anyway. So on 25th September I took a sample of Cabernet and it was OK, so I then arranged with Mr Daney to pick them by machine on Friday 29th. The big machine arrived and proceeded to pick what it could, but there was no Merlot left for us to add to it - the birds had eaten it all! Mr Daney said he had a friend whose vineyard was even worse, which made me feel a little betterWe did pick any left-over Cabernet so added a few bucket-fulls to the total, then left Mr Daney to take them to the weigh-in, fearing the worst as we could only fill one trailer this year compared with two last year.

So, surprisingly, the result was not bad. A total of 4,270 kilos of cabernet at 11.7 degrees potential alcohol. This compares with 7,050 kilos at average 13.2 degrees last year. And Zero Merlot this year compared with 640 kilos last year.

We're hoping this will just about cover our costs for the vineyard this year, although of course we won't actually see any of this money until September 2008......