Heritage Red Raspberry Harvest Report
Heritage Raspberries are some of the most flavorful and delicious red raspberries available. Schramm’s Mead has regularly been fortunate enough to source our Heritage Red Raspberries from Chile.
Located in the Southern Hemisphere, Chilean summer occurs during Michigan’s winter. Unfortunately, during last year’s growing season, the majority of the Chilean raspberry crop failed due to unseasonably heavy rains. What good fruit was remaining went largely unharvested due to labor shortages caused by the ongoing pandemic. As such, we were not able to make a batch with that season’s fruit. So…. batch six? Our hope is that there will not be another crop failure this year, but climate change (excessive moisture leading to fungus, extreme drought, hail), and the ubiquitous supply chain concerns mean that we may not get our wish. The ‘21/’22 Chilean raspberry crop looks to be successful, but nothing is guaranteed until the Heritage fruit has been picked and processed. Even then, we would be many months away from a release.
We will do our best to keep you updated on the future of Heritage Batch Six. This raspberry shortage also affected the production of Valentine Batch Two and Sarah Batch Five, which were made with Maravilla red raspberries and Michigan red raspberries respectively, in lieu of the Heritage shortage.
Unfortunately, we were not able to start new batches of Erik the Red or A Smile of Fortune. Until further notice, what is left of batch five Heritage is all that remains for sale. We appreciate your support and understanding and look forward to making you meads with this delicious raspberry variety in the future.