2016 Season

The first half of 2016 has flown by! It is hard to believe the last post had snow on the vineyard.  Spring was a beautiful time in the vineyard.  It is now very green and we are watching the grapes slowly grow.

Dolcetto - Spring 2016

Lagrein - Summer 2016

The big project this summer is to build the winery.  Chris has been working hard on this project since early May and he hopes to have it completed in time for harvest this fall.  The exterior framing is up and the siding is underway.

Winter Wonderland

Accumulating snow has been fairly elusive since we moved to the Pacific Northwest, but much to our surprise, we had a small amount recently!  It was a beautiful sight to see the vineyard with an inch or two of snow.  We are hoping for more snow this winter.

Harvest 2015

It has been a long time since the last vineyard update post!  We took a break to focus on building our house on the vineyard.  It is done now, so it is time to get back into the groove of posting regular updates.

This fall was our first real harvest!  We collected approximately half a ton of Sauvignon Blanc and almost 2 tons of Pinot Noir.  The Sauvignon Blanc will be ready to sell in January.  The Pinot Noir will have to age until next fall.

Post Pounding in the fog

There are several areas that had yet to have the posts put in for the trellis.  Most of these areas have no plants yet, either.  In preparation for plants that will someday be planted, we wanted to finish installing the metal posts that will later hold the trellis wire.

The task of post pounding is very tedious.  Each post is meticulously placed and the pounded in with a very heavy post pounder.  This tough job does not make for good pictures, but the eerie look of the vineyard on the day we worked on the posts does make for a couple of pretty pictures.  It is not uncommon for the property to be cloaked in a dense fog.  It is quite pretty to see.

Wine making process - step 1

Now that we have grapes, we need to figure out how to make wine.  We had a small harvest, so we did all of the work by hand.  Luckily, we were able to recruit my mom to help us.

The first step was to de-stem all of the grapes that we picked.  We may have eaten a few of the grapes during this process...and they were delicious!

After a couple of hours of effort, we had all of our grapes cleaned up and ready to press. As you can see, we collected two 9x13 pans and one 8x8 pan of Sauvignon Blanc, and one large bowl of Pinot Noir.

We pressed the SB using a variety of standard kitchen items.  We put the grapes in a mesh bag and smashed them with a potato masher and bowls of various size.  We collected the juice in a 5 gallon buck.  To ensure we got it all, we put the grapes in a strainer and put a bowl on top with a weight in it and let it sit overnight.  The juice is separated from the skins and seeds in this case.

The Pinot Noir was easier to process because the juice and the skins stay together.  We did press the grapes a bit before letting it sit.  The juice will darken as a result of sitting on the skins.  This is what makes red wines red.  The juice will also pick up more of the flavors from the skins.

After we collected the juice, we let both types sit for some time.  At this point in the process we had about a gallon of SB and a little bit over one bottle of PN.  There are several more steps in the process before we have finished, bottled wine.  Check the blog over the next few weeks for more.

Harvest 2014

The first harvest for Old Wagon Road Vineyards was September 16, 2014!

We were not expecting a very large harvest since the vines were only planted in Spring 2013.  Typically, the vines take 3-5 years to produce viable fruit.  We were hoping to get enough grapes to play with at home.  Luckily, we did!

We had been watching the grapes and the weather for the last week or so.  The grapes were getting very sweet which means that it is almost time to harvest.  A few days prior to picking the grapes, Chris checked the brix and found a range of 23.25-26.  Brix is the sugar content.  This is a pretty good range for our grapes.

Chris, Jensen, and I spent a couple of hours on the property walking the aisles to pick our grapes.  Most of the Pinot Noir plants had little or no fruit. Occasionally, we found one that had several clusters. The Sauvignon Blanc was a bit more vigorous and the plants had more grapes, but still only a small crop.  Next year we anticipate getting a much larger crop from all vines planed in 2013.

Pinot Noir

Chris picking Pinot Noir grapes

Pinot Noir

 Our little boy, Jensen, was out to help.  He was our quality control.  Fortunately, the grapes were at just the right height for him.

Jensen picking a grape to try

Hmmm...not sure he liked that very much

In the end, we filled about 6 inches in the bottom of our bin.  We took the grapes home and started the wine making process.  Check back soon for the blogs about our first experience making wine.

Pinot Noir crop

Sauvignon Blanc crop (covering Pinot Noir crop)

More pictures!

These photos were taken last weekend.  The grapes are coming along nicely!