Author: F. L. Write

Now that we have fruiting wires we can train our vines. Tying to the low wire (fruiting) provides support and optimizes sunlight and air circulation. It also allows us to control how many buds will develop. We have chosen the Guyot pruning system for our vineyard because it is preferable for a VSP (vertical shoot…

The vines have grown enough that we need to start tying them to the fruiting wires. Since we don’t have fruiting wires, or any trellis wires installed for that matter, it’s time to get busy. Tom and I installed the trellis wires using a spinning wire jenny mounted on a small trailer and towed by…

Tubby is our brouette: a French-style burning barrel. It is built from a conventional 55 gallon steel drum and mounted on a rolling chassis so we can tow it through the vineyard and burn prunings as we go. Tom Palazzo built it and it works great. Here is Tom pruning in the vineyard with Tubby:

Nowadays, most new vineyards are planted by dedicated teams using GPS guided, laser pointing, centimeter accurate machinery. Our vineyard was laid out using string, a long tape measure, and the Pythagorean theorem. Our son Stephen was instrumental in laying it all out and determining where the posts and vines would go. I am rather proud…

Tubes are off and it’s time to prune. Ideally, we would have vigorous growth and strong shoots to train into trucks, but the growth here has been inconsistent. We will again prune the vines down to two buds from which two shoots will emerge. The best shoot will be kept and trained into a trunk.…

Baby vines and blue grow tubes. Blue X grow tubes are designed to protect young vines and speed-up early growth while also promoting upright growth. It’s not only the shape, but something about nature’s beneficial blue light and the temperature inside the tube. Maybe it’s hooey, who knows? For our first vineyard block we used…

Gamay and Chardonnay, May 2021. In early May, we planted our second vineyard block of V. vinifera: 600 Gamay and 600 Chardonnay vines. This time, we chose dormant bare-root vines—again sourced from our friends of leisure at Guillaume Grapevine Nursery in CA. They were not only easier to plant than the potted vines we used in…

It’s springtime in the vineyard! Although we planted our ground cover late, it developed well and now we have rows to mow and weeding to do. Weeding here is purely mechanical, no herbicides, and it is a lot of work. Hands down, it is the most miserable job in the vineyard. I’m going to look…

It is late winter here and time to prune our new vines for the first time. We planted late and let the shoots grow out the first season. For now it is all about developing a strong root system. Grapevines are pruned in the winter when they are dormant. Our first season’s growth was not…

I pulled a few grow tubes today and examined the baby vines. Here is a Viognier vine six days after planting. The trip from CA was hard on them but so far, so good.