DELMARVA. -- Vineyards across the peninsula are taking the drought in stride. The past few months of unusually dry weather have boded well for local wineries.
Vineyard owners told us on Tuesday this is the driest summer they've experienced in the past couple of years, and it means their plants are producing grapes with less juice.
However, growers said that has lead to a quality of wine that is off the charts.
Salted Vines Vineyard and Winery in Frankford, Delaware is seeing a much smaller yield compared to years past.
"We were certainly down 40% here in our yields, our tons per acre," said Adrian Mobilia, owner of Salted Vines.
Mobilia said they've been able to make up for the loss with a better product.
"We're left with a non-watered down, highly concentrated version of the berry," said Mobilia. "So we're getting excellent color, excellent polyphenols and anthocyanins and all that stuff, all the good stuff, so the quality of wine from this vintage will be exceptional."
Over in Vienna, Maryland, William Layton, who owns Layton's Chance Vineyard and Winery, told us some of his berry haul was borderline unusable.
"There's so many of them that just didn't have any juice in there, they just dried completely up," said Layton.
In fact, it forced Layton to get creative when making some of his wine.
"There was so little juice in here I couldn't even get them to go through the pump," said Layton. "I had to add it with another grape and mix it to get enough juice to get them to go through the pump, so they were just so dried out."
Similar to Mobilia though, Layton is smiling ear-to-ear over the grapes he was able to harvest.
"These are going to be the best grapes we've picked in years, we have less quantity of it, and so it's going to be a limited amount of the best grapes ever for us," said Layton.
This is the time of year where vineyards start getting their plants ready for next season. Despite the recent lack of moisture, Layton is optimistic.
"I think the grapes will be okay, I mean they made it all the way through the harvest season good," said Layton. "The grape berries, while there wasn't as much juice, were well formed and ripened evenly and correctly so hopefully they'll be in good shape for next year."
Mobilia said he knew months ago that his crop was going to be in good shape.
"When you're out scouting the vineyards in August, we typically that second, third week, that's when some late season mildew outbreaks can happen and really take over a vineyard," said Mobilia. "We didn't have any of that anywhere this year, like it was just very, very clean, vines were clean."
Mobilia said because his vines are still green this late into October, coupled with a low risk for disease due to the dry weather, he's feeling great as we head into the chillier part of the year.
