Vine/Wine Friday
Vine: Well, finally things are fairly well in hand. The thinning is done, along with all of the pushing of the shoots up through the wires, and the spraying is complete so now it is just observe the set (pollination of the flowers) and see if I have robust clusters this year. Right now things look very promising, but I will know more in another week when I see how the Mourvedre did. The vines are very green and lush this year and as I sit on my front porch writing this, I see a turkey hen with chicks wandering down one of the rows. The turkeys have never done any damage in my vineyard so until they do, it is live and let live.
This is the time of year that is really fun in the vineyard. In the late afternoon or early evening when things start to really cool off, it is a great time to walk some of the rows and just do some minor tending. You can even do it with a wine glass in you hand. The other thing I am quite proud of this year are my roses. They are all in beautiful bloom and it is just a beautiful site. I have yet to add any water yet (except for the roses which are on a separate watering system). It looks like my first irrigation will not be until about the second week in July. For those of you who do not follow my blog on the vineyard, I practice deficit irrigation.
The idea is to let the vines almost reach a point of being distressed before saturating down to the four foot level and then repeating. This usually adds up to three irrigations a year. I manage soil moisture by using sensors that are strategically placed throughout my vineyard and they measure soil moisture at one foot intervals down to four feet. When things start to get really dry at four feet, it is time for an irrigation cycle. I use drip irrigation, 1-gallon emitters and I usually run them for about 96 hours to get saturation at the four foot level. The idea behind this, back up by some research by U.C. Davis, is that water stressed vines tend to force more nutrients to the grapes (the kids), so that while the production is down, the quality is way up. Each year I push them a little harder to see what the limits are and I am still learning.
Wine: Not much to report on the cooking or wine scene since I was on one of those consulting trips where you work 16 hours a day and then collapse in your hotel room with a sandwich from Subway. Actually there is a great market in Burlingame call Lunardi’s and I usually get some cooked meat (chicken, ribs, or some other dish), a salad, and a 24 ounce beer, and then collapse while watching Rachel Maddow summarize the day’s events. But I did pick up a good pinot while I was in San Francisco. I had visited David Bruce’s winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains a few years ago, happening upon it by accident, and was impressed with his very reasonable Pinots. This particular one is a 2006 Santa Cruz Mountains and it has a complexity that just lasts and lasts for one of the best finishes in a Pinot I have ever had. It runs about $32/bottle and for a pinot, this is one great bargain. I also got a Siduri, which is also one of my favorites, but have not tried it yet.
While I was in San Francisco, we did go to a restaurant called Crustaceans which one of my fellow workers raved about. It is up on Polk street near the Civic Center. I found it just okay. I ordered some tiger shrimp and they made the ultimate mistake of overcooking the shrimp. I would not go back. I did find a reasonably priced 2006 Tori Mor Oregon pinot on the menu that was quite nice and soothed my poor palate. That is about it from Lightner Vineyards. The temperature on the front porch has dropped to a comfortable 78°, the vineyard looks beautiful in the beginning sunset. I am a very lucky man. Carpe Diem.
Note: The Damn system still won’t let me post photos. Just once I would like to have an electronic thing that actually worked reliably.