Last year we were caught off-guard. Itasca ripens very early and the critters got most of the crop last year before we got any netting up. It was picked at 1.104, pH 2.8, no adjustments, but fermented cool. My best wine yet. This year, birds have just now started to get some grapes, so on 7/17 Lisa and I started putting the netting up. We netted and closed up the La Crescent and Itasca.
We also netted the back two rows: Foch, Frontenac, Traminette, and Frontenac Gris. These rows are a mess to be honest. I thought I had pruned them hard, but evidently they need more pruning and shoot pruning in particular. They are extremely vigorous and I'm not sure we'll be able to seal them up like we did with the Itasca and La Crescent. We had a really hard time getting the netting over the vines and it only comes about half-way down. Note to self - prune and shoot prune the Foch, Traminette, and Frontenac very hard.
