Flaherty Wines

The grapes are starting to turn color in our tempranillo vineyard, a phase called la pinta in Spanish or veraison in French. In English, we sort of bastardize the French term and call it “verasion” (still spelled veraison). In addition to taking on color, the grapes also soften at this point and start producing sugar. Some varieties change over faster than others, but tempranillo takes its time, resulting in some stunning photos. Our vineyard is particularly uneven, as some of the vines were stressed more than others last year. We thus have a few plants that still have hard green berries, while on others the clusters are nearly all plump and purple.