Harvesting Time at StarHill Farms’ Vineyard
Harvesting time at our Texas Vineyard, creating the Blanc de Bois WIne, among others that our guests can enjoy when they visit.
It's harvest time at StarHill Farms.
Between mid-July and the end of July, we pick our Blanc du Bois (white) and Lenoir/Black Spanish (red) grapes in preparation for making wine. We determine the picking date by the sugar content and the pH of the grapes. The Blanc du Bois is usually picked before the red. Of course, the weather plays a big role in when and how the grapes develop as does the humidity, wildlife (birds and deer), and bugs.
We initially planted our grapes in the winter of 2016, planting 50 each of the Lenoir/Black Spanish grape and the Blanc de Bois grape. Every year since we have added additional vines and now have up to 350 vines.
In 2017, we bottled our first harvest ourselves from these young vines, which was fun but not as tasty, and kind of messy. We called that wine Brisa de Verano. The following year we had a Texas winemaker make and bottle our red. After that, we have had our grapes bottled at this same winery in Nacogdoches experimenting with the blending of grapes to develop some really tasty wines. We also get some great advice from Texas A&M on everything from planting to harvesting and pest control.
From the wine cellar at StarHill Farms
In 2020 we had our largest harvest of Blanc de Bois (600 lbs) grapes and Lenoir/Black Spanish (900 lbs) grapes that we made into a Lenoir Rosé, Blanc de Bois, and a Texas Lenoir Port.
We have been really enjoying the wine from this harvest and sharing it with friends and guests at the farm.
We are going to pick this year’s harvest any day now. We are waiting on our Brix number (sugar/pH) to be just right. Because of the freeze in February and the recent unusual high rainfall, our Blanc de Bois harvest is going to be small. Our Lenoir/Black Spanish harvest is less than last year away, but will still be large enough to send out to make some Rosé and Texas Lenoir Port. Fortunately, the weather did not destroy the vines so we should have a robust harvest moving forward.