What does rain do to a vineyard and the winemaking process?

Well, that has been the question on guests lips for the past few weeks, maybe it is the nervousness of the cellar door staff or the cranky glances from the winemaking team, but we all seem to know that too much rain is not a good thing!
Vintage 2017 will go down as a "wet one" but all in all, we have definately seen worse before so we are still hopeful that we will be producing some great wines this year.
So what does the rain do?
Essentially, the rain will drop the Baume' or sugar levels of the fruit therefore making it  a little tricky in the winery to produce big and robust wines.  It can also cause disease outbreaks (moulds and mildews) but thankfully, we have only had a minimal amount of disease this year. 
On the positive side however, we have some great flavours out there in the vineyard and the winemaking team are confident that with some careful nurturing, those flavours will be the saviour for Vintage 2017.
For a more detailed explanation of rain in vineyards, take a look at this: ASK DR VINNY

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