This time last year, I was trying to make up for lost time, “better late than never!” I thought as I belatedly weeded, watered, and fertilized. I didn’t want spindly plants this year, so I tended my rhubarb in March. The payoff came in May when I harvested 1 lb 14.5 oz (865 g), putting me further along than I was in June of last year. I’ve got high hopes for a good season this year!
A cold April followed a cold March with the average high temperature 3.36 °F (1.87 °C) below normal and the average low temperature 2.50 °F (1.39 °C) below normal. May is almost over, and it feels like its warming up. I’ll post complete data when I have it.
A La Nina weather pattern gave us the cold weather in March and April, but it will weaken and have a negligible impact in June. So says the Climate Prediction Center, a part of the National Weather Service. Hopefully that will translate into normal summer weather.
Back in March, I wrote about freezing wine: that it can preserve an open bottle and even improve it. It was something I had to see to believe, and I did. I froze a half-full bottle of red wine for over a month, thawed it out, shook it up (that’s one of the steps!), and tasted it. Since I didn’t have the original unfrozen wine to do a side by side comparison with, I can’t say for sure if it improved. I’m certain that it did no harm, and the Lady of the House thinks it did improve.
So if, for whatever reason, you’ve got some wine that you can’t finish for a while, put the cork back in and freeze it. It will survive in fine shape and, who knows, might even improve.
He also reports an improvement after freezing wine.
Shipping homemade wine is legal in the US, except via the Post Office (yes, I know how silly that sounds), but the policies of the various shipping companies are confusing. Mind numbingly specific and frustratingly vague at the same time, they seem to add up to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. To sort this out, I teamed up with a reader and tried it out. He sent me two bottles of wine, and they arrived without a hitch. I sent back two bottles of my mead, and UPS delivered them promptly and efficiently.
I’ve heard stories of people fibbing to get a shipper to deliver their package, but I wanted to see if it could be done honestly. Our little experiment could have been a fluke, but shipping hundreds or thousands of packages, from and to many different cities, is a bit much for me to try. So I’ll go by what I can do, which is read the terms and try the experiment. Based on that, I’ll venture a tentative “yes,” you can ship homemade wine via commercial shippers (again, not the US Post Office – I don’t know why, but you can’t).
Have you shipped homemade wine (or mead or beer)? I’d love to hear about it. Just leave a comment at the end of this post.
With the growing season off to a cold start, I’ve been thinking about how to grow the best grapes in a cool season. Cluster thinning and leaf pulling can help by maximizing sugar production, in a grape vine, and by making the most of the sugar it produces. Good canopy management will bring out the best in a vine under all conditions, but it doesn’t work magic. Without enough heat, grapes won’t ripen well, and you can’t do anything about the weather. Or can you?
Scaling up a greenhouse
Jeff Chorniak inspired me to grow grapes in my suburban backyard and he used a collapsible greenhouse to extend the growing season. By sheltering his Cabernet Franc in this way, he made early spring and late fall just a tad warmer, and that can make all the difference when you’re growing grapes in Toronto. I’ve never done that myself, but the possibility of a cooler than normal season has me thinking about it. I’ve also wondered if the concept could be applied to a vineyard, by using plastic sheeting the way gardeners use row covers.
Some Puget Sound growers are doing just that. I’m hearing that overnight low temperatures, inside a tented vineyard row, are as much as 10F (5.5C) warmer than neighboring untented rows. On a clear day, under bright sun, it can get up to 15F (8.3C) warmer. “As much as” and “up to” are always tip offs that typical performance will be less, and that’s probably true here. Still, every degree helps and this might be a good way to cope with a cooler than normal year.
As I said in my previous post on shipping homemade wine, one of my readers and I are experimenting by shipping our wines to each other. He shipped two bottles of tomato wine, and they arrived in great shape – no breaks, no leaks. I sent back two bottles of mead. I hope they arrive intact and that he likes them as much I like his. My tomato wine isn’t far enough along yet to compare with his, in fact the last time I checked it was pretty harsh.
Don’t ask, don’t tell?
Both of us had a similar experience when we shipped our wines. We packaged up the wine at home and presented the sealed box to a shipping clerk, who never asked what we were shipping. I made up my mind before hand that I wouldn’t lie, and if asked, I was ready to tell him that I was shipping some of my homemade wine to a friend. He was only interested in two things, however, my credit card and whether or not the value exceeded $100.
I did have to fill out and sign a “shipping order” form, which had a space for me to list the contents of the package and some other details. The clerk handed it to me and said he just needed my name, phone number, and signature. Its possible that a different clerk would have required an accounting of the package contents, but our experience is that they don’t care what’s in a plain, ordinary package.
I expect the package to arrive in about a week, and I’ll post an update when I hear about it.
Update 5/18/2008: Success!
The two meads I shipped arrived safe and sound.