Wine Label

I have been working on a label for our vineyard. Doris and I settled on a name JohnDory Vineyards, a not so subtle play on our names and the name of a southern ocean fish. A very tasty fish by the way. It seems logical to use the fish's image on the label.

Please give me your thoughts on the label. We have about 12 months to arrive at a final design.

Chardonnay Vineyard Development

Sorry this post is a little out of order. It took me a while to edit.

The development effort for our Chardonnay vineyard has just about concluded for this year. At my daughter Jennifer’s urging I have been documenting vineyard development in photos. A few of you have seen, in person or photos some portion of this development effort. Hopefully, this picture story will add a little depth to what we have shared before.

We are not doing this on our own. The development manager for the project is Paul Sloan of Small Vines Viticulture, Inc. Harry Walker of Walker Station Vineyards, my next door neighbor, has also been a valuable resource. The new vineyard is on the slope that is east of the house and is approximately 1 acre.

Before any work was done we did soil and water testing to determine the suitability of the site and identify issues to be addressed in the development. The key issue was that the site needed drainage to intercept water from natural seepage. The seepage was visible at two sample sites and one site that showed evidence of prior wetness. To address the wetness, French Drains needed to be installed at a depth of 5’ to move the water away from the vineyard.

The small excavator pictured was soon replaced with a much larger unit due to the slope and soil compaction.

The soil tests identified one additional item. Gypsum needed to be added to the soil at the rate of 3 tons/acre. As soon as the cross slope drains were complete this very big truck arrived to do the spreading.

Chalk lines were put down where each vineyard row would be to guide the ripping. GPS surveys were done before the chalking to establish row locations. Each of our vineyard rows line up precisely with Walker Station’s rows, 18 degrees east of due north. This gives the west side of the vineyard rows a little less sun time (hot afternoon sun) than the east. When we get to actual grapes growing the leaf pruning will also address sun load, more leaves left on the west side of rows.

A D6 Cat was brought in to rip the soil to a depth of 24”. It was quite a sight seeing such a large piece of equipment in your back yard. The ripping tool looked a little like a large plow anchor. Everything shook as this equipment moved up and down the yard.

Following the ripping a tractor with a disc harrow began to break up the surface soils. During the disc work a surprise visitor arrived, much to Doris’s disgust. He was interested in what besides soil was chopped up in the disking. The last step in the soil preparation phase was performed by a box plow. This smoothed out the soils to the final grade.

Using the GPS points the rows and vine locations were again laid out in chalk. With the row lines re-established, re bar stakes were driven at 3 foot intervals in each row. These will support the trunks of the young vines as they mature. With the re bar in place trellis stakes were driven between every third and fourth re bar stake. The trellis stake will support the fruiting wires and drip irrigation hoses.

A new piece of equipment arrived to drive the row end posts that terminate each row. These posts will carry high loads from the weight of the vines and the fruit supported by the wire, and are driven about three feet into the ground.

Before the fruiting wire is strung on the trellis system new trenches were dug for irrigation and frost protection water mains. Earlier during the French drain excavation the well water and power lines were cut and repaired. This was despite hand digging to locate the lines beforehand. Again the lines were cut to the well and the septic system during the irrigation main trenching. We have a 3200 gal water storage tank so it was easy to live without the well for a day, but prompt repairs were required for the septic line cut.

The picture below is the vineyard as it looked on October 5, 2007. It is almost ready for rootstock planting next spring. Before winter rains come in November, a cover crop will be planted and straw waddles installed to protect the vineyard from soil erosion. The infrastructure of the vineyard is almost complete. Some irrigation and frost protection plumbing is needed to connect up to the well. However, water will not be needed until we plant in May so final decisions on that water storage, filtering and pumping configuration can be made over the winter. This fall and winter we will be ordering rootstock and making decisions on which Chardonnay clone(s) bud stock will be grafted to the rootstock. Next year we will be planting root stock and watching it grow. In the fall the bud stock will be grafted and year three will be watching that grow. In year four we can expect a small crop of Chardonnay.

JohnDory Vineyard

Erosion Control in New Chardonnay Vineyard

10/11/2007

It rained on Tuesday night and some of Wednesday, an unusually early rain according to the weathermen on network TV. They finally has something to talk about besides morning fog, clearing 78 and sunny.

Anyway the rain caught the vineyard guys by surprise and they didn't get the cover crop and hay down until today. I thought you would like to see some of the pictures. The fellow on the seed spreader had the best job. The poor fellow on the hay blower that was loading the hay definitely had the worst job. I think we should nominate him to be on the Discovery Channel show "Worst Jobs".

On the 8th we had a welcome visitor to the vineyard. A resident (neighborhood resident) Red Tailed Hawk. He is our first line of defense against the gophers. Gophers are becoming the thorn in my saddle. Chewing through new plantings and with their friends the moles dingging up my new lawn. I can identify with Bill Murray's character in "Caddy Shack". I may have to rent the movie from Netflixs, to get some new ideas on gopher extermination.

Pinot Noir Fermentation 2007

After the harvest Doris and I took off on a trip up the Northern California and Oregon coasts. We joined the Landons (neighbors from Rock Hall) who were on a six week Northwest driving trip. A great time was had by all.

So far none of this matched with the title.

On our return from Oregon, I checked in with winemaker Marty. He told me all was going well and my Pinot had completed the first fermentation. The first picture is the top of the fermentation vat before punch down. You can see it is bubbling away. The next picture is after punch down. Punch down is just like it sounds. The grape skins that worked to the top of the vat are pressed down to the bottom with a paddle that looks like a large potato masher(no holes in the bottom). This is done to keep good contact between the skins and the juice. The wine is punched down twice a day until it is dry (no sugar left).

You may never drink wine again after seeing these two pictures.

Pinot Noir Harvest 2007

September 19, 2007

Today was harvest day, our first. It was a few days earlier than planned (Sept 21) as rain, yes, rain was in the forecast. The day started out crisp with blue skies and four hot air balloons
making their way across the Eastern sky. Not in a pattern where I could get all four in one photo.
The grapes were ready. The brix (sugar) was 25.

At 9:30a.m., 18 pickers arrived. They stood around joking in Spanish with one another for about 10 minutes. Then as if someone shot a gun, they grabbed picking boxes and started to pick.

In no time, less than 10 minutes, 19 picking boxes were full and the vineyard was picked clean.

It was time to load Matt’s trailer pulled by his classic Jeep (137,000 miles) with almost 600 lbs. of Pinot Noir grapes for the trip to the winemaker’s ( Marty Martin-Vegue) house on the east side of Santa Rosa.

Safely at Marty’s house we unloaded the 19 boxes from the trailer and prepared the stemmer/crusher.

The whole process took about an hour including clean-up. It was a very sticky process!

Now Marty performs his magic along with legions of yeast. In 18 months we will get to open a bottle or two and see how our wine tastes.

JohnDory Vineyards