Nov 4, 2005
The Season’s first flowery nose
This is how a grape bunch looks before the flowers are fertilized and become fruit
We’ve only had the Cabernet Franc variety growing in a Stormhoek vineyard for 4 years. When it was planted we had no idea whether it would ripen earlier or later than other varieties.
It was a big surprise to see it flower 2 weeks before our current earliest variety, Pinotage.
There are hundreds of these smaller-than-pinhead blossoms of every bunch now. Only a minority will survive the hazards of fertilization (wind, rain, disease, insect activity) to become developing grape berries.
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