You're Breaking My Buds!

We got bud-break, Houston! And wouldn’t you know it, right on Earth Day. Talk about symbolic.

All it took was a weekend plus a couple days of warm-to-hot weather, and the vines began pushing harder than a pig through a lipstick tube. On Tuesday I strolled though my little vineyard and the white buds were swelled-up like crazy, each sporting a tiny reddish tip. By Wednesday noon, the cocoons had broken open, and those red tips had become the start of unfurling green leaves. Bud-break.

The nice thing about this bud-break is it looks fairly uniform. Usually you get one bud here, another way over there, then two days later, a couple over here…but almost every vine is popping with soon-to-be leaves and shoots.

First question…is this late? No, pretty much average. The earliest I’ve seen bud-break is April 3rd, and the latest –last year- the first week of May. So April 22nd is looking pretty sweet right now.

Time to celebrate with a refreshing white wine (I agree, not the smoothest transition), and the Mirth, 2007 Chardonnay, $8. Mirth? Well, that’s David O’Reilly, of course, the label-making machine (Sinnean, O’Reilly, Owen Roe, Sinister Hand, etc.).

It’s a blend of about half and half Oregon and Washington grapes, and as such, has a bit of multiple personality disorder. On the one hand rich, on the other, lean. No quality disorder, though, as it’s an exceedingly pleasant wine, with green apple, lemon and pear aromas, and fairly lean, almost crisp (cautious remark for no oak) texture, with citrus, green apple flavors, and notes of peach. Lovely stuff, and at a recession-ready price.

I hope there’s plenty around in July when after a couple hours of pulling shoots and leaves under a blazing sun, I can sit on the back deck and cool down with a couple sips of this perfectly refreshing wine.