You know it’s fall on the Old Mission Peninsula when the grapes put their cozy sweaters on and set a pot of cider on the stove to mull.
The delicate netting now adorns many vineyards around the OMP neighborhood, including the ones in these photos, taken at Brys Estate this week.
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We follow the donning of the grape sweaters year after year here on Old Mission Gazette. The annual event signals the end of summer and the beginning of cooler weather (great for hiking those trails – yes!), gorgeous colors gracing the trees, and puffy clouds filling the skies.
Here they are in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019. I don’t know what happened in 2018, but I was probably recovering from this.
Brys Estate is located on the old Giles farm, and they’ve lovingly kept the old barn in great shape. Click here to read more about the Giles family and get Nida Giles’ German Potato Salad Recipe.
According to the video below, the netting is draped over the grapes about six weeks before harvest. Some 45 miles of netting over 50 acres of grapes. That’s a lot of sweaters.
The netting – which is applied via a machine with human help – helps to keep critters like birds, deer and raccoons from feeding on the tasty grapes as they continue to ripen on the vine.
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A NOTE FROM JANE: I started Old Mission Gazette in 2015 because I felt a calling to provide the Old Mission Peninsula community with local news. After decades of writing for newspapers like the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, and magazines like Family Circle and Ladies' Home Journal, I really just wanted to write about my own community where I grew up on a cherry farm and raised my own family. So of course, I started my own newspaper. Because the Gazette is mainly reader-supported, I hope you'll consider tossing a few bucks my way if I mention your event, your business, your organization or your news item, or if you simply love reading about what's happening on the Old Mission Peninsula. Check out the donation page here. Thank you so much for your support. -jb
[…] has definitely arrived on the Old Mission Peninsula, and not just because of those lovely grape sweaters covering all the […]
[…] and squirrels foraging for winter sustenance, fields full of harvesters, vineyards draped in ghostly gauze, and ultimately, hibernation, dormancy or death for many living things. For our forefathers, whose […]