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2012 Grape Harvest is right around the corner, and in fact will start this week for some growers with early varieties going to large wineries.
The Lake Erie region, which accounts for about 2/3rds of all New York vineyard acreage and tonnage (predominantly Concord for grape juice), will unfortunately have a very small crop this year due to a late spring frost which killed the buds. However, other regions are looking promising, and the previously feared drought is now just a memory, thanks to a series of timely, steady rains a couple weeks ago.
At this point, the harvest appears to be a couple weeks early, which decreases the fear of a killing frost toward the end. The hope now is that the weather remains warm and dry through the end of harvest. Fingers crossed.
Jim Trezise of Penn Yan has been the President of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation since 1985 and President of the International Riesling Foundation since 2011.
