Conserve Water, Improve White Wine

Conserve Water, Improve White Wine

Conserve Water, Improve White Wine. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.

New research out of Washington State University may help white wine grape producers make better wine. Dr. Markus Keller, Professor of Viticulture with WSU explains that water conservation is extremely important.

KELLER: The wine grape industry is already doing a very good job of conserving water. Actually, it is so good at it that I think in some cases they've gone a little bit too far on the water deficit side especially when it comes to white wine grapes

The problem being is that while water conservation helps red wine grapes it can be a detriment to white varieties.

KELLER: The reason is that in red wine usually the winemakers want small berries, they want very well sun exposed fruit, they want small canopies and all those kinds of things and it turns out that might not be the best strategy for white wine grapes. When you look at results from shows and articles that wine critics write in wine magazines and so on, there is often that slight criticism that Washington could be better than it actually is. When I look at how people do their irrigation my fear is that they're sometimes under irrigating because they've learned how to irrigate red wine grapes.

So what's good for one is not necessarily the best for all. Dr. Keller says they are finding promise with partial rootzone drying and he'll be discussing this at next weeks wine meeting in Kennewick.

That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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