Donald Trump is continuing to insist that the vines at his Trump Estate winery in Virginia will not be dropping their leaves any time soon because ‘it’s still summer’.
His refusal to accept the results of the changing season has angered and frustrated scientists and vineyard staff who maintain that the onset of winter is ‘fair, natural and inevitable given that it’s December.’
No winery owner has ever attempted to deny the changing of the seasons before.
‘Massive irregularities’
Trump’s own pet lawyer has seen no evidence of plants being coerced into dropping their leaves. But the owner has consistently claimed that his vineyards would retain their foliage all year round and that only ‘massive seasonal irregularities’ could prevent that from happening.
‘It’s still summer outside,’ he told shivering reporters last week. ‘And these vineyards will keep on producing amazing grapes right the way into 2021.
‘We make great Merlot. The best Merlot. Better than in shithole countries like France. No-one makes better Merlot than us.’
When shown pictures of yellowing vine rows Trump said they were suffering from ‘Coronavirus, which isn’t a big deal’ and lambasted the reporter for being a ‘terrible wine journalist’.
Putting Nature in the dock
Looney Giudiani, Trump’s viticultural adviser, told Fake Booze that the ‘yellow leaves’ issue could be easily cured by spraying the vineyards with either fake tan or hair dye. He also admitted that his legal team are considering a lawsuit against Mother Nature for ‘not giving us what we want all the time’.
‘We’ve all seen pictures of vineyards in places like South Africa and Australia – totally green!’ he told Fake Booze. ‘So let’s just say nature seems to be working OK for those guys. If that’s not seasonal fraud on a grand scale then I don’t know what is.
‘And provided we can suspend all forms of logic and judicial process we’ll prove it.’
But growing teams at the University of Washington felt the Trump Estate team were simply delaying the inevitable.
‘Vines have their time in the sun, then they die back and in winter we cut off all the dried out and unproductive bits,’ said viticulturalist Joe Bidet. ‘Getting rid of dead wood is an essential part of the growing cycle.
‘Especially if it’s diseased and a bit orange.’
