17 replies to this topic

[bigadamsoy]

25 brix, 3.8 pH
Here's a couple photos:
 leon harvest 2012.jpg   56.56K   57 downloads  leon 2012.jpg   55.73K   86 downloads  leon crush.jpg   131.75K   68 downloads

[K-9]

Wow! Looks nice! I am struggling to get my vines ready for nets.... behind the curve a bit this year.

[Howie]

I just had bud break 2 weeks ago.

[Starcastle]

Beautiful! I'm jealous.

[poni]

Those look great! I still have mine in the tubes! Thats is awesome. they look perfecto!

[gregorio]

Damn Adam! We are still in flower here!

[Tomer1]

Whats going on here? Is it a super early ripening verietal or are you getting two harvests a year over there?

[Howie]

Two things Tomer. It's an early ripening grape and it's Texas.

[bret]

Beautiful! And amazingly early.

-Bret

[Juniper Hill]

Adam,

Nice photos. I'm just at the flowering stage here up North. I am wondering why you chose this varietal? Leon Millot is super common around here, but that because of our limited season. That can't be a consideration where you are.

Neil

[Tomer1]

We have the Negev dessert which is as hot if not hotter then texas (not as hot as navada) and we get about normal ripening there with vitis vinefera. well.. lucky you. You can do CM on these grapes and have it in the bottle with the tanks ready for new grapes by the time the "french verietals" are ready for harvest

[bigadamsoy]

Adam,

Nice photos. I'm just at the flowering stage here up North. I am wondering why you chose this varietal? Leon Millot is super common around here, but that because of our limited season. That can't be a consideration where you are.

Neil

I've tried a lot of grapes at my site. I like early varieties because they usually ripen before the hottest part of the summer kicks in. There are no commercial varieties that I know of that will ripen later than mid august in my area, so I like to opt for the earlier ones. There are a couple of varieties that I can get two crops per season out of by pruning back to spurs mid-summer, but Leon doesn't set much fruit the second time around, so I usually just let it be. Still, it's one of my favorite varieties in my vineyard, and has turned out to be highly resistant to Cotton Root Rot, which I have intermittent problems with in most of my other varieties.

[bigadamsoy]

We have the Negev dessert which is as hot if not hotter then texas (not as hot as navada) and we get about normal ripening there with vitis vinefera. well.. lucky you. You can do CM on these grapes and have it in the bottle with the tanks ready for new grapes by the time the "french verietals" are ready for harvest

This part of Texas has a very long growing season. Some years I can ripen two successive crops of Tannat before it freezes in late November. It's not that it gets so hot here, because many parts of California get hotter. It's just that it never really cools off after April. The nights stay warm, so the ripening is sped up considerably.

[tom h]

Not to hijack the topic but I'm considering planting albarino an hour north of you. What do you think?

[Juniper Hill]

I've tried a lot of grapes at my site. I like early varieties because they usually ripen before the hottest part of the summer kicks in. There are no commercial varieties that I know of that will ripen later than mid august in my area, so I like to opt for the earlier ones. There are a couple of varieties that I can get two crops per season out of by pruning back to spurs mid-summer, but Leon doesn't set much fruit the second time around, so I usually just let it be. Still, it's one of my favorite varieties in my vineyard, and has turned out to be highly resistant to Cotton Root Rot, which I have intermittent problems with in most of my other varieties.

That's really interesting Adam; I see where you are coming from now. Part of me still can't beiieve you and I might be growing the same grapes, but for different reasons. Have you tried any of the other early ripening hybrids? Personally I like Luci Kuhlman (Foch's twin sister) a little more than Leon Millot; I find the wines a little more complex.