Botrytis cinerea

Botrytis cinerea likes warm and humid

All diseases are not easily recognized, but this one requires no skill and it has serious consequences. Observe it at the end of maturation, especially for whites (late August in the south of France).

Few problems for the early harvests

Botrytis cinerea is a fungus that grows only beyond a certain level of maturity with good conditions of warmth and moisture. The grapes harvested earlier are not exposed to such many diseases.For example, white wines with marked acidity or red grapes harvested early to give fruity, low alcohol, often spent in thermo vinification, or pink acidulated to drink fresh.

An optimal aromatic maturity indicates a lot of work

When the winemaker wants to obtain an optimal maturation of the grapes he should decide well before summer. How to prune and maintain the vine will largely determine its ability to advanced maturation. More the berries ripen and more they are exposed to disease and weather problems.

Maturity and moisture

Botrytis is installed when it is wet, warm and after a certain level of sugar. The fungus grows inside the cluster with greater ease than these clusters are buried under the foliage, thus protected from the drying effects of wind and sun.

These are the items that tell you that the vine will be susceptible to disease :

• Looking at the vines you do not see ever clusters, they are buried under the foliage;
• Putting aside the foliage you observe that clusters are compact and gathered in the center of the vine.

The botrytis gives a musty taste even at low concentrations. White grapes such as Chardonnay are particularly sensitive to the end of maturation. If you are looking for a Chardonnay with lots of flavors requires that the cluster zone is sufficiently ventilated to prevent the development of this fungus. Otherwise, the vinegrower will have to harvest his vineyard before its aromatic optimum and this will not be in this vineyard that you'll find the tastes of a good maturation.