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State
of
growth
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Growing, growing, growing....that could be the only way to describe the vineyards at this stage of the season. It would appear as if not even a herd of charging Wildebeest could stop the growth of the vines. With even more summer rains and even balmier days in December the vines don't quite know that they should now be entering a ripening phase of the season. As mentioned in earlier notes, the teams on the farm have not had much time to celebrate Christmas or the new year as we have had every able bodied soul hard at work in the vineyards keeping everything in check. We will start the leaf and shoot thinning operations in the next few days to open up the canopies, letting in much needed light to assist us with the ripening of the grapes. Fruit set was, in certain vineyards, not as good as one would have hoped for, but that was due to the excessively wet conditions in the flowering period, but overall we have a good fruit set and will have to drop some crop on order to achieve optimum concentration of fruit flavours and ripening.
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