April Trip - Part 3

We were back on the lot on Saturday to meet with a couple of vineyard managers.  We were working with a vineyard  manager, but it did not work out.  We met with 2 others on this trip to get their thoughts on the land and the next steps.  We are currently in the process of clearing some land.  Once it is cleared, there will be some effort required to make it plant-able.  We will also need to fence in the area to keep the deer and other animals away from the plants. We will have to decide on the vineyard manager pretty soon to make sure the upcoming work happens on time.

Before we work on the fence and land prep, we had to decide exactly how much land we will enclose.  The picture below shows the lot with our current plan drawn out.  The property lines are in red and the existing road is black.  The blue area, about 10 acres, will be cleared and fenced this year.  The house graphic is in the approximate location of the home site.  The diagonal cleared area is where power lines cross the property.

It was a crystal clear day, so we were able to see far off into the distance in every direction.  The two pictures below are looking toward the east at Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson.

Mt. Jefferson

Mt. Hood

This is the view of the home site from the top of the hill to the north.  In just a few years this hillside will be covered in grape vines and there will be a beautiful house on the other hill.

April Trip - Part 2

We have been working with Country Side Nursery for the last few months. It is a local wholesale nursery that grafts vines. We have already placed an order for vines that will be planted in spring 2013. We stopped by on Friday to visit our vines and discuss ordering some addition vines. Linda and Janelle were very informative and friendly, as usual.

Linda gave us a quick overview of the grafting process.  In order to grow the preferred wine grapes, the vines must be grafted to root stock that are native to America.  Vines not native to America are susceptible to disease, and the native root stocks are not.  Grafting will combine the desired bud wood with a root stock.  A device is used to cut each plant into a puzzle piece shape and then attach them.  Once the grafting is complete, the connection area is covered in wax and the new vine is stored in peat moss in a warm humid room.

On our trip to the area in January, we stopped by the nursery and put in our first order. We had a chance to see some of the vines during that visit, but I did not get any pictures. I rectified that mistake on this trip. Here are a few picture of our vines.

Chardonnay:

Sauvignon Blanc:

April Trip - Part 1

It is spring in the Willamette Valley!  We spent last weekend in the area to meet with consultants and to spend some time on the lot.  We drove up on Thursday and stayed until Sunday.  Yet again, we had a lot to do.

Thursday night we arrived in time to have dinner at the Dundee Bistro.  This is a great little restaurant in the heart of wine country.  It has an extensive wine list from local wineries.  Our waiter was very knowledgeable on the selections and was able to give us some great info.  We chatted with him about our land and our plans to grow grapes.  He had some good ideas on unique grapes that might do well with consumers.

One of menu options was dolcetto.  This is one of the grape varieties that we have on order to plant in spring of next year.  The dolcetto was grown locally in the Willamette Valley.  Chris had a glass and was impressed with it.  It is very encouraging to find dolcetto that was grown in the area and that tastes so good.

Lagrein is another type of grape we have ordered for spring 2013.  There was one bottle of lagrein available at the Bistro.  Chris had enjoyed this particular wine on a prior trip.  It certainly encouraged him to search for lagrein that we could plan in our vineyard.

Friday was a very busy day and our first chance to see the work that had been done on the lot.  We had an appointment at 8am to meet the guys from A-1 and a pole-barn contractor.  We are planning to build a 24'x24' pole barn near the well site.  This barn will have a water tank and will provide a shelter for the equipment we have yet to buy.  Unfortunately, the area we want to use is not flat, so we will need A-1 to make a pad for the barn.  After a lengthy discussion, we settled on the placement.  The area has been very wet, but as soon as it dries out, A-1 will begin clearing the pad.

After visiting the well site, we headed up to see the progress on the 2 areas we are having A-1 clear.  We had seen pictures, but it looked like so much more land than I expected!  All of the trees are down and piled up along the road.  There is still a lot of debris on the hillsides, including the stumps, that will have to be removed up.  Here are a couple of pictures of the slope on the north side of the property.  There are approximately 5 acres of plantable land in this area.

There is a large area near the home site that will also be cleared for planting.  This is probably about an acre of land.

The final area that we have a contract to clear is the home site.  It looked fantastic and I'm sure it will be perfect for a house.  There are great views in every direction.  We do not have the house plan figured out yet, but the back will probably face the views below.  The front of the house would overlook the 5 acre block shown in the first 2 pictures.

We talked with Larry and Mike about the work covered in our contract.  We decided to change it a bit to get a few more acres cleared for planting.  With the changes, we will have around 8 acres available for planting.  Chris keeps adding more vines to our orders, so we will need the extra space!

We spent some time exploring the lot with Larry and Mike before heading off to the nursery.  I will post more about our trip in the next few days.

Larry from A-1 Logging