Veraison at Rove: The Month the Vineyard Turns in Traverse City, MI

August at Rove is the month where the oldest work we do and the newest thing we've built arrive at exactly the same time. We're calling it harmony. The vines are calling it Tuesday in Traverse City, MI.

Out in the Rows: Veraison Has Begun

Out in the vineyard, veraison has begun. This is the moment the fruit turns, when hard green berries soften and blush into color, and the vines quietly switch jobs from growing to ripening. Five generations in, and this part still stops us mid-row. The grapes know what they're doing. We just try to keep up.

If you've never heard the word, veraison (say it "verr-AY-zhun") is the hinge of the whole growing season. Until now, the vine has spent its energy on green things: shoots, leaves, canopy. At veraison, it changes its mind. Sugar begins flowing into the fruit, acidity softens, and the berries take on the colors you'd recognize from a bottle. Red varieties blush purple one berry at a time, so for a few weeks each cluster looks like a mosaic, half green and half violet. White varieties turn more quietly, shifting from hard green to a soft, translucent gold.

One grape wears this moment in its name. Pinot Grigio takes "grigio," Italian for gray, from the smoky pink-copper color its berries turn during veraison. It's a white wine grown from a grape that never quite decides on a color, which might explain its range in the glass. Our2023 Pinot Grigio, this month's featured wine, started as exactly these blushing clusters three summers ago, and it's pouring in the tasting room all August if you'd like to taste where veraison ends up.

Watch our rows this month and you can watch it happen in real time. No two clusters turn on the same day, and no two vintages turn on the same schedule. Veraison is the vineyard's way of telling us how far off harvest is, and we listen closely.

What Our Crew Is Doing While the Vines Show Off

Ripening fruit is sweet fruit, and we are not the only ones who've noticed. August is when the bird netting usually  goes up, because a starling can find a ripening Pinot berry from what we can only assume is outer space. The crew is also pulling leaves around the fruit zone to let in sun and air, hedging the summer's last stretch of growth, and keeping a close eye on the canopy, because Michigan humidity never takes a month off.

By late August, the first sampling walks begin. We taste berries row by row and measure their sugar, the opening move in the long math of deciding exactly when to pick. Harvest is coming. The vineyard just told us so. Want to taste from the vines? We will have our Vineyard experience soon!

The August Sky Has Opinions Too

Farmers have always read the sky, and August gives us plenty to read.

The month opens with Lammas on August 1, the old Celtic festival of first fruits, marking the midpoint between summer solstice and fall equinox. For centuries it was the day farming communities paused to give thanks that the season had turned toward harvest. Standing in the rows watching the first berries blush, it's not hard to see why they picked this week.

Then the sky goes dark in the best possible way. The new moon arrives on August 12, right in the middle of the Perseid meteor shower's peak on August 11 through 13. A moonless sky means this is a genuinely good year for meteors, with the best viewing after midnight. Our patio lights will be off by then, but your porch works just fine. Grab a bottle on your way through this month, the 2023 Pinot Grigio if you're taking our advice, keep it corked until the sky gets dark, and let August do the rest.

The month closes with the full Sturgeon Moon on the night of August 27 into 28, named for the ancient fish of the Great Lakes, which makes it about as Michigan as a moon can get. Some traditions called it the Moon When All Things Ripen, and we couldn't put it better if we tried. This year it brings a bonus: a partial lunar eclipse visible that night, one more reason to step outside before the month lets go.

Old farming calendars, from the Celtic festivals to the growers who still plant and pick by the moon, would call August the month of fruit. Watching veraison sweep the ridge, it's hard to argue.

Meanwhile, Someone New Has Joined the Family

While the vineyard does the oldest work we know, the website is home to the newest. Meet Maeve, our virtual sommelier. Ask her what to pour with whitefish, which bottle suits a rainy evening, or where to begin if Leelanau wine is new territory for you. She knows the cellar better than some of us do, and she never sleeps, which frankly feels like showing off.

See You in the Rows

If you're visiting the tasting room this month, look out at the vines and ask us what's turning. We love this question. And when you head home, take the sky with you. Reserve an estate experience here!

We'll see you soon, and the stars will see you later.