Monday, August 8, 2011

Day in the Woody Vineyard

So I finally made it up to the Estate Vineyard to check and see how things were progressing and just like predicted, we are anywhere from 10 days to 2 weeks behind. There weren't any signs of veraison on the cabernet franc yet, which in normal years usually starts around the first of August. Now that we've had about a week to a week and a half of consistently 85+ days of sunshine it'll be interesting to see if we catch up in the vineyard and how quickly.

Not a bad way to start the day!
Grape clusters
Great view of the valley from our vineyard
Because of the freeze last winter, we had to cut back most of our vineyard.  Everything except for the cabernet franc, sauvignon blanc and chardonnay was cut back to the ground and will not produce a crop this year. Earlier we let the vines grow in fairly wild and now we are going through the vineyard and thinning down to what we will use to retrain as the trunk and the cordons.