The relatively cool summer months have caused delays for a lot
of local crops, and it has growers such as Pietra Santa Winery
unsettled about this year’s output.
The relatively cool summer months have caused delays for a lot of local crops, and it has growers such as Pietra Santa Winery unsettled about this year’s output.
With a historically cool summer, aside from grapes still being in harvest, county agriculture leaders are concerned in particular about tomatoes and walnuts, said Ron Ross, the county’s agriculture commissioner.
Additional rain before harvesting is finished can cause problems for the crops, he said.
“Sometimes it promotes the growth of mold on the fruit,” Ross said.
For grape growers like Pietra Santa, this year’s harvest is about a month behind. Head winemaker Alesio Carli noted how the recent rains dropped about a quarter-inch at the vineyard near Hollister. He said workers will get the harvest done in about two weeks.
“It gets everybody on edge,” he said.
Carli called this year’s crop “iffy” and said some varieties will be better than others that get picked later in the harvest. The wine from this year’s crop will be different than the “classic California style” with more “finesse,” he said.
“It will be more restrained, with less alcohol content,” he said, adding later, though, “Bigger or more is not always the best.”
It already had been a difficult year for grape growers in the region with the spread of the European grapevine moth, with a quarantine area as close as southern Santa Clara County. Ross noted how the agriculture commissioner’s office has been monitoring the special conditions for some wineries in San Benito County that take in grapes from the quarantine area, “to eliminate the possibility” of introducing the moth here.
