Blog Post
Sunlight held together by water
Kerry Shiels • Jun 26, 2019
Long days of summer sun make for good times and good wines
Wine grapes are smart. They thrive in great places to live, with beautiful hillsides and nice weather. The Yakima Valley is no exception! It’s an amazing place to enjoy the long days of summer. With our northerly latitude, official sunlight hours right now stretch from 5 am to 9 pm. Including the time to enjoy the sunset, and you are easily outside until 10 pm.
This is the best time of year to enjoy the outdoors; hiking, biking, and country drives with wine tasting during the day. When the sun goes down, it cools off for BBQs, bon fires and smores. Clear skies mean you can actually see the stars for quality stargazing.
It’s similar for the vines – long days mean they bask in the sun, soaking it up for photosynthesis and energy. At this point in the season, the grapes are pea sized, green, and hard, and yet, flavors of the eventual wines are already being determined by the amount of sunlight that they get. As the summer progresses the light will be important for developing color, flavors, and tannin structure.
Sitting on the patio with wine in hand is probably my favorite spot to contemplate the magic of everything from photosynthesis, to good friends to drink with, to just how much happier we all are when the sun in shining!
Even with great weather, there is variation and variability in any vineyard. One of the big sources of variability we see in the Yakima Valley is due to our large difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures. These dramatic temperature swings are so important for grape quality, but they do mean that we have to manage the microclimates within the different parts of the vine.
Consistency in the Vineyard helps create wines you can count on
It's incredible to think about now, but the beginnings of DuBrul Vineyard are not far removed from the beginnings of the modern Washington Wine Industry.
