Vines here in the Loire are now in full flower. As you pass the vineyards and the wind is blowing in the right direction you might be lucky enough to inhale the delicate scent that comes from vineyard flowers.
It’s one of my favourite aromas so I’m often found with my nose directly in the vines during flowering gently inhaling the beautiful scent. I’m not exaggerating when I say that you need to get up close and personal to really enjoy the experience.
Flowering in vines isn’t a showy affair. In fact if you didn’t know what to look for you might not even notice it as you pass by. Vines are self pollinating which means they have both male and female sexual organs contained within the flower. While insects and bees can help them along the way, they aren’t necessary for pollination.
We talk about harvest being roughly 100 days after flowering. It’s one of those figures that is pretty accurate (a bit like saying pregnancy lasts 40 weeks). Based upon that we should be looking at a harvest date in mid September (around two weeks later than last year).
