On the Contrary

Vine:  Well I have just come in from the vineyard, thinning the Syrah.  The picture on the left gives you some idea of the rapid growth that is occurring in the vineyard especially if you compare to my last weeks posting.  For those of you that want to know what growing grapes involves, this is one of those extremely important tasks to focus growth on well-positioned and strong shoots.  I have been getting up every morning at 5 am to be in the vineyard so I can be out of the vineyard by 10 am or so to he out of the heat and the sun of the day.  What you want is that each of your spurs produce two well positioned (top of plant and growing up) fruit bearing shoots. Think of a T, with the cordon forming the top of the T.  On each side of the trunk on the cordon, you want 5-6 spurs out of which you want two fruit bearing shoots to grow.  But the grape plants are very unruly and they will push out buds that grow into shoots all over the plant, and will push out multiple shoots at one connection point (node).  You want to remove all of these excess shoots, break off one of the doubles since this weaken the joint and makes the two shoots compete for nutrients, and remove non-fruit bearing shoots (you can see the flower clusters that will produce the grapes).  So you must walk along each row, and do some choosing at every spur.  It is time consuming, sometimes frustrating, and tedious. This gets further complicated since many times your strongest shoots are either doubles (two shoots out of the same node) or are poorly placed so that pulling them up through the wires (trellis) could and will break them off.  In some cases, growth is weak and then right next to it you have a very strong shoot, but with no fruit bearing clusters.  So you are trying to thin the growth, pick the best choices for fruit bearing shoots based on strength of growth and location, and sometimes leaving non-fruit bearing shoots to reposition your spurs next year.  The picture on the right shows a single spur and some of the jumble of shoots.  The picture below on on the left shows the same spur thinned.  It is a long tedious task but I have finished in the Syrah.  The lower vineyard Syrah is the worst because it is all terraced so you are working on a steep slope and yes I fell on my ass more than once.  Next I will tackle the head trained Grenache and then the Mourvedre.  In the meantime I need to walk the Syrah about every three days, break off any new growth, and push the shoots through the wires as they grow.  And you just thought I sat on the porch and sipped wine.  Next up after that is mowing down the vineyard, and then beginning Spring spraying for powdery mildew.  The fun just never stops.

Ron Mansfield, my vineyard adviser, told me a story about a couple who recently planted a vineyard (last year) and the plants (bushes really) needed to be thinned to strong shots to grow up the stake to later be thinned to one (the strongest) to form the trunk of a head trained vine.  He had gone out to give them a lesson in how to thin the plant and pick the two shoots (and tie them to the stake).  Then left them to their work.  While he was out there they were telling him about their plans to do some traveling in June and I laughed and said, they don’t get this yet, you don’t travel in June.  He said it got better.  They called the next day to see if Ron would “back them up” if they couldn’t get all the work done.  It is a lesson for all you out there that are thinking about your own vineyard.  It is hard work, albeit rewarding work, but the work doesn’t care about your schedule.  If you are planning to do everything yourself, I would not exceed 1500 plants which is what I have.  And understand that some tasks you really will need help because it won’t wait for one or two persons to get around to it.  Heavy equipment won’t help.  That is pruning in the spring, and harvesting in the fall.  Both tasks have a window of optimum performance and needs to be done by a crew who can complete it in a very short time.

Wine: We have an event up here this weekend (Rock and Rhones) which is one of my favorites and I wrote about it two weeks ago if you are interested.  But this is my time to replenish my wine cabinet and since I belong to many wine clubs, most of my work is simply picking up my shipments at the different wineries.  So I thought I would do that so that during the event at many of these wineries I would not have the additional task of picking up wine.  My wife is always suggesting that we buy more wines we are unfamiliar with and generally I would agree with her, but one rule of thumb is that good wine is usually not cheap.  Good wines up here are usually $20-$32 and of course I get a growers or club member discount which makes getting my wine fix locally even more attractive. So I pick up about four cases (of course I added some additional bottles to my shipments) and I thought I would give you some recommendations to come up here and taste so here they are (sorry, no whites):

Holly’s Hill

2007 Mourvedre Classique (Disclaimer – Some of the grapes are mine)

2005 East Slope Syrah

2007 Tranquille

Miraflores

2006 Petite Sirah

2004 & 2005 Syrah 2006 Zinfandel

Any Year Methode Ancienne Syrah

David Girard

2005 Mourvedre

2006 Syrah Gamay Noir

2006 Syrah

Narrow Gate

2007 Petite Cuvee

2006 Petite Sirah

2006 Syrah

Donkey and Goat

2006 Four Thirteen (Disclaimer-2 of the 4 varietals are my grapes)

2006 Syrah (Vieilles Vignes, Mednocino)

2006 Fenaughty Vineyard Syrah

I have a suggestion for you.  Sometimes if a winery is tasting several vintages of say Syrah ask to do some side by side tasting.  For instance pour a Miraflores 2004 Syrah next to a 2005 and compare.  Do the same thing with different growing locations.  For instances at Holly’s Hill ask to taste the Hilltop Syrah along side the East Slope (same vintage).  You will be amazed at what you can learn.  Carpe Diem.