Grape Harvest Begins

Grape Harvest in Southern Illinois

Cobden -- Grape harvest is in full swing right now at vineyards across Southern Illinois. But yields are expected to be much lower than last year because of harsh weather more than 4 months ago.

Grape Growers are blaming lower yields this year on the Easter Freeze. Brad Ganung, general manager at Owl Creek Vineyard said, it "took out a lot of our primary buds, so we're mostly on the secondary buds as far as the fruit goes, so its been very challenging for grape growers." This group of pickers is harvesting nearly 2 tons of grapes at Owl Creek Vineyard this week.Ganung says his vineyard is producing at only 50 to 60 percent. He says, "we're going to get good fruit out of this whole thing. The grape sugar is right where they need to be, we're getting nice acidity, so their will be a good structure to the wine."

Ganung says other than the Easter Freeze, the growing season has been exceptional-- and a bumper crop would have been possible.He says, "at least the weather the rest of the summer has been fantastic. We had rain at the right time, a lot of sun, a lot of heat. So it seems Mother Nature is trying to make up for the freeze." As the grapes make their way through the crusher and the de-stemmer, and is pumped into the press. Ganung is just happy to see a grape crop at all.

Now he's just hoping the rain will stay away. He explains, "the grapevine would push up a lot of water into the berries, which would dilute the juice. Sugars would come way down, Ph would go sideways and our acids would go off. It would delay our ability to harvest." A harvest that Mother Nature has been toying with from April till now. Owl Creek Vineyard harvested 50 tons of grapes last year producing nearly 12 thousand gallons of wine.