Harvest gets all the hoopla. If you look at the life of a vine as you would a novel, it's the dramatic denouement, when the fully developed, juicy characters are ready to slip from their pages.
That would make veraison the critical turning point, or climax.
 
Verai-what? Ver-ay-shon. It is that very exciting midsummer moment when the sugar levels in wine grapes begin to rise and the acid levels fall, setting phenolics in motion and getting us closer to pressing juice and making wine.
 
This year, veraison has sprung about 7 to 10 days early in areas around Northern California, from Napa Valley to Livermore and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Since harvest typically follows six weeks after the start of veraison, that, too, will arrive early this year, viticulturists say. And as long as temperatures remain moderate, they predict another killer, balanced vintage.
 
Veraison is underway in Steven Mirassou’s sangiovese vineyard on Tesla Road in Livermore.
Veraison is underway in Steven Mirassou's sangiovese vineyard on Tesla Road in Livermore. (Steven Mirassou)
"As of now, we're seeing exactly what we hoped to see physiologically," says Napa viticulturist Allison Cellini of Renteria Wines, which manages some 40 vineyards from Carneros to Pope Valley, including Rombauer and Frank Family Vineyards. "The vines are slowing down their vegetative growth in the shoots and leaves, and allocating most of their resources to the ripening of the grape clusters."
 
Chemistry aside, the best way to tell that early-ripening grapes, like pinot noir and sangiovese, are changing is by look and touch. Veraison is the first visual indicator that separates white wine grapes from red wine grapes. While the white ones start to go from green to golden, red wine grapes start to show their very first blush of color.
 
Still, feel is usually the best indicator. Or, as Steven Mirassou of Steven Kent Winery puts it, "the grape goes from hard, small marble to something that's plumper and has a touch of softness."
On the valley floor in Livermore, Mirassou reports the very first signs of veraison in sangiovese grapes at the winery's home ranch along Tesla Road. Over in the eastern foothills, where he manages the prized Ghielmetti Vineyard, petite sirah is showing its first blush. "When we see that color and overall quality hanging on the vine, it's a lot easier to start to see what that quality will taste like in the finished product," he says.

But that color attracts an unwelcome presence: birds. Particularly in a drought year, when water and food sources can be limited, birds may eat entire clusters, or even worse, peck at grapes, emitting juice that drips and encourages disease, explains Prudy Foxx, a Santa Cruz viticulturist who works with dozens of vineyards, including Storrs Winery and Soquel Vineyards. "If the vineyards are not protected, it's like a Thanksgiving feast."
 
Veraison has begun in Napa Valley’s Carneros region. Here, pinot noir grapes from the Brown Ranch Vineyard begin to change from green to red.
Veraison has begun in Napa Valley's Carneros region. Here, pinot noir grapes from the Brown Ranch Vineyard begin to change from green to red. (Allison Cellini)
Wineries resort to everything from netting and reflective mylar to bird cannons and predator bird call devices to scare them away, she says. Decades ago, when Foxx worked in Washington state, she would walk through the vineyards and play her clarinet at dawn. It seemed to work.'
 
"I think the advantage was that I could easily move around," she recalls.
 
But pests don't dampen the mood at this time of year. Viticulturists have another p-word on the brain -- phenolics -- those fascinating chemical compounds that affect taste, color, mouthfeel and tannin development of wine. Veraison is a sign of that, too.
Says Napa's Cellini: "This is that exciting time where we start developing what will actually become wine in the bottle."
 
p.s. I know nothing about wine growing, but I sure love what veraison means. It seems to represent what life is all about; earth's bounty brought to our table to be revered and cherished.