So far this season we have received more rain than we did in the entire growing season last year.

The picture to the right was taken 10 minutes after we received between 2 and 3 inches of rain in the span of less than half an hour.

In July alone, we received approximately 6 inches of rain; doubling our normal average for the month. This excessive rain has resulted in a major battle to keep the shoots in the wires and to keep them from overlapping - which creates stale air pockets with low UV exposure. Keeping the fruit exposed to the sun has been a challenge as well. The laterals seem to grow as soon as we pull the leaves, which results in blocking the fruit from the sun. We used a mechanical leaf puller early in the season and have had to do another pass through the vineyard by hand to clear out what the machine missed and what grew back. Luckily, the month of August has not been as wet as the beginning of the growing season, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that the trend continues to help keep the disease pressure down and fruit ripening process up.