Notes From The Winemaker

Jungle Vines

We have had nice warm weather for a while now. This weather, along with plenty of sub-surface moisture, has produced a lot of growth at the Estate since I last posted a picture of this block of Syrah. What a jungle! I'm still waiting on labor to thin and tuck shoots and to sucker the trunks. I am promised it will be done by the end of the week. Right.

Here is a shot of the fruit set in the Pinot clone 115 -- NICE! The berries are up to pea-sized already. I like the small clusters and the balanced crop load. This looks to me like about 2 tons/acre, so I'm only planning to thin the weak and young vines in the Pinot blocks this year.

Planting the new block of Pinot Noir clone 943 is done. I'm always reminded of a military cemetary when I see a picture of newly-planted vines -- how morbid. The milk cartons are there to keep the rabbits from eating the little bit of foliage on the tops of the new grafts. The planting went well. It's a mercy we have had some relatively cool weather since -- you can see today's overcast in the photos -- because the shallow roots are susceptible to heat damage.

Daytime temperatures have been topping out in the high 80's to low 90's. Night temperatures are back down in the 60's. The forecast calls for this trend to continue through mid-week next, though perhaps without the persistent cloud cover.

posted 6/27/2006 04:09:00 PM