HINTON, IA -
The Drought of 2012 is definitely far from over, but for wine enthusiasts there's some good news.
The grapes used to make your favorite glass of vino are doing great.
Excessive heat can be bad for most crops, but for grapes, they don't seem to mind.
"I'm hoping its really gonna turn in to be a you know, a vintage year, so to speak as far as having a really flavorful wine," said Barry Dittmer, the owner of Tucker Hill Vineyards.
Dittmer has been a winemaker for ten year and says the secret is establishing the vineyard in the first three years.
"You don't let it put any fruit on, you want to establish the vine itself, and let the root set up really good, and if you do that, like these particular vines, they turn out to produce a pretty good crop even when there is a low amount of moisture," he said.
He says the grape vines can handle heat better than your normal corn or soybean crop but even though the heat isn't affecting the vines, he says the biggest challenge is during the veraison period, when the grapes begin ripen, because, that's when the birds show up.
"There just isn't a lot of food out there, the mulberry trees, got frost damage, and there really hasn't been a lot of bugs around either, so they found the vines, and they like to eat grapes,"
So he wraps the vines in a net, but in two weeks, that net comes off, and Dittmer will begin to harvest.
And even though most of the state is suffering from the heat, there will be no shortage of wine in the near future.
