This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)
Before harvest, in the Bodegas Arzuaga vineyards we experience an almost magical process where the grapes show us how they’ll look when the time comes to pick them. We’re talking about veraison, the moment when the grape changes colour, leaving behind the green of the unripened fruit to gradually take on the red shade that announces the harvest process is drawing near.
‘The grapes are going to start changing colour. They’ll take on different shades, they’ll go through blueish tones and, as they get more pigmentation, they’ll turn black,’ explains Jorge Sánchez, head of vine growing at Bodegas Arzuaga.
While all the different processes that take place in the vineyard are natural, almost magical, marvels, veraison has to be one of the most striking. As you can see in the photo accompanying this post, for a few days, the grapes that have already changed colour live side by side on the same bunch as others that are still green and only beginning the transformation process.
But why does veraison occur in the vineyards? When the grapes and green and small, for example when they are the size of a pea, they have a low sugar content but a high chlorophyll content and a fairly high acidity as well. As the weeks go by, the grapes get fatter and the water and sugar levels increase. The skin also starts to get finer and change colour. Veraison is here.
It’s worth noting that veraison only affects the grape skin, not its flesh, which in the majority of varieties doesn’t have that red colour. That’s because the colour of wine depends on the grape skin, which is what gives wines their colour.
This is also the time when the vine shoots become lignified, going from having a green appearance to a woodier one, which we’ll talk about in a few months when the dry pruning takes place on the vines.
Once the veraison has ended, with the red grapes now their characteristic dark colour, we only need to wait for the bunches to finish ripening so that, once the grape has reached the perfect point, we can start the harvest.