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!

A hint of color!

This is an exciting time of year.  The summer sun is beating down on the vines and they love it.  The formerly very small grapes are growing and changing color!

Look closely at the center of the cluster and you will see a purple grape!

Chris recently did another run with the tiller to clean up the weeds in the rows.  They look great now!  The two pictures below are the newly planted area with Pinot Noir.

Here is a picture of the lonely Dolcetto rows.  We will be filling in an acre with Dolcetto eventually.

 The final picture is some of the original Pinot Noir that was planted in 2013.  Nearly all of the vines are ready to be trunked this year.

Summer maintenance

Summer is a very busy time in the vineyard.  The vines that were trunked last year are growing grapes and large canopies.  The newer vines are progressing well; nearly all of the vines planted prior to this year will be trunked at the end of this season.  Chris has spent many hours roaming the aisles to ensure all of the plants are tied up and trained.

There are a few other summer tasks that we are not doing this year because our vines are young.  Normally, the leaves near the grapes would be pulled off to expose the fruit to more sunlight.  Also, some of the fruit could be dropped to encourage the remaining fruit to ripen.  This is called crop thinning.  We will do these activities next year when we plan to get our first viable crop.

Here are a few recent photos.

Trunked vine

 

Grapes on a Pinot Noir vine

Trunked vine

The work continues...

Chris has made excellent progress on the trellis and irrigation system.  The newly planted areas now have a trellis in place!  Next he needs to finish hooking up the irrigation lines.

First, and most importantly, the vines are doing well!  The newly planted vines are coming along.  You can see in the picture below that there are bamboo stick holding the vines in place.  This is part of the training.

These photos show the different between 5/3 and 4/13.  All of the metal posts are in place and the main irrigation line is run.  Next the irrigation lines must be run down each row with a dripper at each plant.

5/3/14

4/13/14

Chris was finishing up the trenching for the north facing hill.

The vineyard looks beautiful right now.  One element of the cover crop is crimson clover.  It blooms this time of year with a deep red flower.  We were excited to see it since we did not know it was part of the mix.

A beautiful day for post pounding

The new vines are in the ground, but the trellis is not yet in place.  Building the trellis is time consuming and labor intensive.  We hired someone to pound in the end posts with their tractor, but all of the metal posts (over 500!) had to be pounded in by hand.  Once the posts are in, the wires must be run and the irrigation must be installed.  It will take several weeks to complete the project.

The placement of each post was meticulously determined to ensure the vineyard is accurately laid out.  A string from end post to end post north to south, and another string east to west, is used to mark the post placement.  Once the spot is established, the post is pounded down to an exact height.  It is important that the location and height be very accurate so that the wire and the vines match up as planned.

Here are some pictures of the new are in the south east corner of the vineyard.

Metal posts are being installed for the rows

A row in the middle is completed first to help with measurements

View from the south side of the block

The block just north of the house site already has the poles in place.

Panoramic from the home site.  The vineyard will be about 40 feet from the house.

New vine checkup

Last week started with 2,500 vines in pots delivered to the property, and it ended with all of those vines in the ground!  It has now been about a week and I finally got a chance to go out and check out the new plantings for myself.

A majority of the new vines were Pinot Noir, but there was also some Sauvignon Blanc.  Some of the new vines have already sprouted leaves, however most of them have only buds.  Soon all of the vines will be flourishing.

Pinot Noir vine that already has leaves

Pinot Noir vine with buds

Now that the new vines are in the ground, Chris will have to start work on the trellis.   As it turns out, building the trellis is a very time consuming process with many steps.  It all starts with the end posts.  The 8' posts will be pounded into the ground sometime this week.  Each post must be pounded down and secured with a thick wire and earth anchor.  Once the posts are in the ground, the process of pulling and securing the many wires will begin.  The first one to be added is the sprinkler wire; this is the wire that will secure the irrigation lines.  The second is the fruiting wire.  It will be used to help secure the young vines while they grow; later it will be used to hold up the fruit.  The upper wires include the canopy wires (2 sets) and the wind wire.  In addition to the wire, the irrigation will have to be extended to the new rows.

The pruning over winter resulted in a few vines being 'trunked' and most being 'two budded'.  Trunking a vine is pruning the vine to allow fruit growth the following season.  If the vine was thick enough at the end of last season, it was trunked.  Those that were not thick enough yet were two budded.  This pruning technique reduces the size of the vine to promote more root growth.  These vines will not be allowed to produce fruit this year.  The fruit will be cut off so that the energy is not wasted on ripening the grapes.

Trunked vine

Two-budded vine

A post with the lower set of canopy wires installed

Over 2,500 vines to plant!

The vines have finally arrived.  We ordered over 2,500 vines that have to be planted this spring.  Some of the vines are already 2 years old while others are 1 year old.  No matter what the age, all of them have to go into the ground on the vineyard.

With the help of at least 10 others, Chris got all of the new vines planted.  The bulk of the work was done in 1.5 days.  It is hard to see the new vines in these photos, but trust me, they are there!  The black dots you see are the empty pots.  Those have all been cleaned up.

Spring chores

The spring rain has brought the vineyard back to life!  This spring is a busy time; the normal spring maintenance has to start and the vineyard has to be prepared for the new vines.  These chores will mean a lot of time spent on the property...at least by Chris.  I will mostly be home int he warm dry house with Jensen.

Layout - With approximately 2,500 new vines due to arrive this spring, one of the first tasks is to complete the layout.  Chris and I went out one damp weekend to get started.  Preparing the layout entails accurately measuring between existing plants and the new plant location.  A small bamboo stick has to be placed in the ground at each spot you intend to plant a new vine.  It is a somewhat tedious task.  We managed to finish a small block over  4 or 5 hours.  Over the following weekends, Chris continued work on the layout with hired labor.  They finished up much faster than we would have without the help!

Mowing - The cover crop in the vineyard has definitely started to grow again.  Farmer Chris spent some time recently to mow it.  It looked so nice when it was done.

Weed control - In addition to mowing, weed control is an important spring task.  I got to play around on the ATV to do some of the weed spraying.  I did the fence line.  Chris did the in row spraying that will keep the weeds from growing near the vines.

Trellis construction - The trellis for the existing plants is missing some of the support wires called the catch wires.  These are used to catch the canopy  when it starts to grow larger throughout the season.  There is a lower set and a higher set.  Chris has been working hard with the help of hired labor to install the catch wires.  Soon he will also have to start work on the trellis for the new plantings.

As you can tell, there is a lot to do on the vineyard.  This will be a very busy growing season.  We hope to get a small crop off of the sauvignon blanc vines, but the we will drop the fruit from all of the other vines to encourage root growth.

Keep an eye on the blog for the latest updates!