September just ended and nobody tried to wake up Green Day I can see, god I’m so in with the young kids with that meme knowledge. Anyway, that’s not really what I wanted to say, but I’m keeping it in. With the end of September comes the end of the Vendemmia

The Vendemmia is the glorious moment of the year when grapes are harvested for winemaking, yep, not just any harvest it’s the most important one in the book. You can’t find any of those amazing Chianti reds and those Pinot Grigio if there ain’t no Vendemmia.

So what is the Vendemmia all about? And why does it need to be done during September? Well, let’s first say that the September Vendemmia is only done in the northern hemisphere, as Australian wines are harvested in a different period. In the end, it all comes down to the weather, to the latitude of the vineyards the grapes will be ripe later on.

September is the best period in Europe because after the Summer heat the wine producers can understand which levels of sugar, acid, and aromas are within the grapes they’ve produced. Higher sugar, means higher alcohol percentage, acidic substances are needed to make sure bacteria doesn’t settle in the wine, and aroma, well it’s aroma you know that one.

There are mainly two ways of picking grapes for the Vendemmia, manually and by machine. As you can imagine Manual picking brings about the best wines, and also drives the price up, most wines that use the manual picking method are called “Vintage” because the practice is the one used during the first Vendemmie. You know the one where the farmers would step on the grapes.

Anyway now is the time that most grapes are resting in their wine barrels, they deserve a long rest before you can drink it. Give it some time.

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