Good News

I just got this note from Marty Martin-Vegue, the wine maker for John Dory 2007 Pinot Noir, (he calls his half of the lot "Lyon Vineyard")

Good news travels fast. You might want to upgrade your Pinot Noir Blog with the news that the Secondcrop Cellars 2007 "Lyon Vineyard" Pinot Noir just received a silver medal at the harvest fair this year...congratulations. I got a gold for a Merlot and another silver for a Zin, then 6 others were bronze, so your grapes did very well.You should be proud.

August 2009 Update

It's been almost 3 months since the last update. The t-bud (former pinot noir) vineyard has been growing and growing and growing. Some of the more robust vines have grape clusters. The clusters are still very green and most likely will not ripen this year. Next year we should get production from these vines.

The new vineyard, which we started from rootstock last summer and grafted to chardonnay earlier this summer is also doing very well. A few plants still are lagging and have their white grow tubes, and some are not going to make it. It could be that they were hit harder by the frost or gophers or both. A new problem that popped up about 3 weeks ago is deer pruning. The four legged farm workers started to munch on the plants in the north east corner of the vineyard. My farm manager quickly sprayed "Surround" on the plants and the deer damage has stopped. Surround makes the leaves taste bad and turns them white (see photo).

Speaking of farming pests, the gopher score is now 89, up 11 since the last report,

and moles 9, up one - a very important one I might add. This bugger dove into my front lawn about a week ago kicking up two big mounds. My lawn had just started looking nice after last summer's mole invasion. Adrian started setting traps and had the culprit in about three days.

New Chardonnay Vineyard Grafting

Friday morning, June 5th, I was up early to take some pictures of the vineyard before the grafting. The cool weather we have had resulted in good vine growth. The frost-damaged portion of the vineyard had recovered nicely so the whole vineyard could be grafted.

At 6:30 am sharp the grafting team pulled in to the vineyard. The four grafters started by sharpening the grafting knives. The knives look like a small version of a barber's razor and are just as sharp!

The grafting began with the first four rows in the northwest corner of the vineyard. There are 1130 vines in the vineyard and the whole vineyard was complete by 11:30 am (no breaks). That's slightly less than a minute a vine. I tried taking pictures of the grafting process. It was difficult because the hands moved very quickly.

The grafting steps are:

1.) Pull rootstock vine over and place

under your knee.

2.) Slice a bud or two from the bud wood and place buds in your mouth to keep them moist.

3.) Make a small incision at the base of rootstock for sap drainage.

4.)Make a downward slice in rootstock about 6 inches above base and cut sliced material off.

5.) Place bud on the slice.

6.) Secure graft with white tape.

7.) Cut leafy growth from

rootstock about 1 inch above graft.

8.)Move to next vine.

One vine a minute for 5 hours on your knees in the sun!

Grafting Update

The grafting we did in the former pinot noir vineyard is taking hold. The chardonnay buds that were grafted to the pinot stumps are starting to push out. I am giving the plants 6 hours of water today which should really make the new bud push out shoots over the next week.

Gopher Update

The last time I updated you on the Gopher War the headcount was 34 less gophers. I now have a new recruit in the anti-gopher army. Adrian, a hand I borrow from a neighboring vineyard has a real knack for gopher trapping, and much younger knees. The total now stand at 78 less gophers and 8 less moles. I have started keeping score of moles since they almost destroyed my front lawn. They don't harm the vineyard.

Grafting

The grafting team arrived at 6:30am today, Saturday May 18th. My 154 pinot vines and 200 pinot vines in a neighboring vineyard were to be grafted over to chardonnay.

Step one was to cut the shoot head off the vine. Then the gentleman doing the grafting peeled a little bark off the stump end, and made a small slit on either side of the trunk. Into each of the slits he slid a chardonnay bud and wrapped it with a white tape.

It took until 3:00 pm today to do all 354 vines.

Changing Over

We have begun the process of converting

 the 150 Pinot Noir vines at  the front of the property to

 Chardonnay. This was not a popular decision with all family members. When complete it will raise our  chardonnay production by 13% and give us a saleable quantity of fruit.

The first step in this process was to

 cut back the plants to a stump. All this year's growth was removed and hauled down to the burn pile. We will give the vines a few days to stop oozing sap before doing any more to them.

Saturday a budding crew will come in and graft new bud wood to the vine stumps. In about two weeks we should see new shoots of Chardonnay pushing out of what was a Pinot vine.

The clone we selected for grafting is Montrachet. The vineyard where we harvested the bud wood produces grapes for wines that consistently are getting tasting scores in the high 90's.