First six sentences: One of the most talked about issues this season is this thing called ‘Hang Time’. It seems like every grower I’ve talked to since harvest mentioned it at some point in our conversation. Several growers have contacted LWWC staff and asked if there is anything the Commission can do about this issue. The goal of this column is to briefly outline the topic, tell you where you can go to get more information, and let you know what the Commission is going to do to address it. Some of the information comes from Nat DiBudio’s Presidential Message in the November issue of the Allied Grower Growers Newsletter (www.alliedgrapegrowers.org) with the wonderful title “Girlie Men, Losers, Hang-Time and Vintage Dating” and also from a column that appears in the November newsletter of the California Association of Winegrape Growers (www.cawg.org). Over the past few years many wineries have been asking growers to leave grapes out hanging on the vine longer and longer in order to allow them to reach fuller flavors and achieve optimum ripeness, thus the term ‘hang time’.
