I thought I write a few lines about what is going on in the vineyard at this time of year. Let me start by saying I LOVE this time of year in the vineyard. This is when we create the foundation for the vintage, and potentially next year. First, we need to prepare the soil. As we grow our vines organically, we use horse manure as fertilizer. Our vineyard is on a sloping hillside, so we need to spread it manually and then tiller it into the ground. I’ve included photos of before and after so you can see how nice the rows look now. We also use White Dutch Clover as ground cover between rows. The ground cover looks pretty and is essential to maintaining and improving soil health. The ground cover also helps with weed growth and can be managed to influence vine growth and canopy characteristics, crop size, and fruit and wine quality.

Second, we grafted our young vines. In California, we use a rootstock that is resistant to the phylloxera louse. Today, most modern vineyards are planted on phylloxera-resistant rootstock with the scion or budwood grafted in a commercial nursery or in the field. Our vines consist of budwood (the part that makes it Syrah) grafted on a rootstock. We planted the rootstock two years ago, so I grafted Syrah on those rootstock plants this year (see photo).

Third, we started pruning the vines. This is the most critical task in the vineyard and also the most exciting. We use a cordon spur-pruning system. Basically, our vines are trained in a “T” shape (see photo). Those horizontal arms are called “cordons,” on which are spaced vertical spurs every six inches or so (approximately a hand-width). It is from those spurs that we get new vine growth each season. For each vine, you need to decide how many buds to leave on each spur (normally two buds), which will set up the growth for the following season. I will write about vine balance at some point, but the number of buds helps determine the vine balance and crop yield. So we want to make some smart decisions hence why I find this such an exciting time in the vineyard.

As always, our dog, Cruz, was very helpful in the vineyard. He didn’t miss anything! Sorry for the long note and thank you for reading it to the end. More to come about pruning in the next couple of weeks.