Wine Grape Growing
Glossary
L
LATE HARVEST. On labels, indicates that a wine was made from grapes picked later than normal and at a higher sugar (Brix) level than normal. Usually associated with botrytized and dessert-style wines.
LATERAL. Side branches of a shoot or cane.
LEACHING. The movement of soluble constituents below the root zone with water.
LEAF. The leaf is the vine's primary engine of photosynthesis. Although the grapes get some of their sugar from the carbohydrates stored in the perennial wood of the vine during the earliest stages of ripening, the vast majority of sugar production is performed by the vine's leaves during the middle and later stages of ripening.
LEAFROLL. A virus disease of the vine.
LESION. A wound or delimited disease area.
LIGNIFY. The process that begins late in the summer, whereby shoots accumulate a polymeric compound called lignin, which allows the stems to become resistant to cold and water loss.
