10577 Barbera d'asti Harverst started

Good luck with your harvesting, is there any treatment for the condition you described (powdery mildew) do the grapes still grow to full size with this condition?.
It must be wonderful to taste and savour your own wine !!!.

I like reading your reports Phil but sorry indeed that the yield this year is down. Do you export your wine to London by any chance???

A quick answer to both of the above questions as I head out of the door to start harvesting again.....
Powdery Mildew can be treated with sulfur powder - a comon practice in Italy - it is "dusted" on, and is allowable in organic farming. Growing conditions this year defeated our normal treatment regime.
Do we sell our wine in London - yes we do (I don't wan't to fall foul of furum rules here) see link in my signature block, we deliver throughout the UK.

Will post more pictures later today.

Ok, another 12 hours of harvesting done. The grape bunches got better as we worked our way up the vineyards. So at one stage (after lunch) when fatigue is setting in, the fact we were working along rows with plentiful and undamaged barbera d'asti was a real spirit lifter. We also took twice as much yield this afternoon as we did in two half days (yesterday and this morning).
So quantity is very low, but the extreme selection means quality is very high, and our sugar content this year is through the roof. I suspect we wil make a barique "superiore" this year and nothing else.
Probalbly anothe half day to finish...Will post some photos shortly..

Barbera d'Asti harverst pictures:
[IMG]http://www.stayinpiedmont.com/pages/new/Vineyard_diary/images/2008_barbera_harvest_grapes5.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.stayinpiedmont.com/pages/new/Vineyard_diary/images/2008_barbera_harvest_grapes3.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.stayinpiedmont.com/pages/new/Vineyard_diary/images/2008_barbera_harvest_grapes2.jpg[/IMG]
More pictures on [URL="http://www.stayinpiedmont.com/pages/new/Vineyard_diary/vineyarddiary.html"]my vineyard diary[/URL].

The final day of our harvest. As predicted below the yield of barbera d'Asti this year is very low. Of the 2 hectares we have in production for 2008 we have taken a total of just 26 quintale (2,600 kg) - in a normal year we could expect about 16,000kg. I can also report that many in this region are reporting similar low yields. The more positive news is that the bunches we have chosen to pick are exceptional, with high sugar content (23 degrees) and with great complexity and character. So for 2008 we will make only a barbera d'asti "superiore", aged in oak barriques for at least a year. Post harverst I have been undertaking the remontage twice a day (where I pump the grape must over the cap of grape skins to keep it moist and to maximise the colour transfer from the skins. The colour is just fantastic (see below).
[IMG]http://www.stayinpiedmont.com/pages/new/Vineyard_diary/images/barbera_2008_1.jpg[/IMG]

Interesting picture on your 'thread opener' -

The gloves that the young lady is wearing to handle the grapes - am I mistaken, or did you liberate them from the fruit & veg section of your local supermarket?

[They look just like the ones I liberated for painting]

.

I like the idea for getting gloves, but sadly not - the ones provided in supermarkets are too flimsy - these are industrial grade gloves - which means they last about 10 minutes longer.

.You mentioned low grape yields this year, would this be down to poor rainfall
over the summer (unlike the u.k!!) or the problem with powdery mildew you
mentioned previously in this thread.
The pictures of the harvest are great, I hope your wine will be too !.

The lower yield is a common thing for all producers this year, so I will say it is down to seasonal conditions. In fact a very wet May and June followed by an (overnight) switch to blistering heat and hardly any further rain pre-harvest.

In our partucular case we cast aside at least 50% of the grapes as they were either not fully mature, or infected with powdery mildew, so our yield may well be lighter than many others.

I am confident the wine will be excellent, someone suggested pricing it at 50Eur per bottle to cover the shortfall - if only!

Phil thats an interesting post, funnily enough around Asti we were hit harder by peronospera (downy mildew for the non-technies) rather then odie, devastated my vineyards this year, didn't matter how much you sprayed it kept raining, and I use bordeaux mixture not systemic fungicides (and the cost of copper this year did not help) Funnily enough my Barbera got hit harder then my Bonarda in a reverse of the usual trend, usually I always get a touch in the Bonarda,. but the Barbrea is quiet resistant. This year was worse then even 2002 when it rained all year, I think it was all the intermittent days of sunshine which really made perfect breeding conditions for mildew.
Allora as my Barolo friend says, its years like this year which make you appreciate the good ones - my 2004-2006 prices just went up! (2007 still in barrel).