Extra (7/30/13, 15 Brix)
Black Spanish (8/4/13, 22 brix)
Bridlegate x Carnelian (9/6/13, 22 brix)
Bicolor x Lady Patricia (9/10/13, 24 brix)
Bridlegate x OP (9/15/13?, ?)
(B49 cinerea X Villard Noir) x herbemont (10/10/13, 15 brix)
A couple of notes on the chart. First, the local commercial harvest at Red Caboose ran from 7/22/13 to about 8/15/13. I've estimated the harvest date based on my field notes.
I mistakenly harvested the one Bridlegate x OP cluster on 8/11/13. We were about to leave on a vacation, and I was afraid it would ripen while we were gone. Once I picked it, and looked at the underside of the cluster, I discovered the berries hadn't finished turning blue. The bottom halves of the berries were still green.
I was surprised by the steady drop off in brix during October. I was expecting higher and higher sugar as the berries started to raisin. That didn't happen. It seemed they lost both taste and sugar during October. On the other hand, the Alphonse de Serres raisined during summer and produce a 26 brix on 9/2 (which I omitted since the cluster was clearly raisining and ants had attacked the cluster).
Both Black Spanish and Extra vines produced small crops compared to 2012. This seemed to follow from the late frost in the first week of May. The frost caused Extra to put out a couple of new clusters in June, which were just about ripe when our November freeze ended the season. Getting the late start extends the days required to ripen since September and October have so many fewer 'Growing Degree Days'.
I let the clusters on the three late ripening vines to hang as long as possible. The Bridlegage - Carnelian was clearly raisoning by 10/1/13, so I picked the 3 clusters. Great raison tastes! The other two hung until our November freeze.
