Definitely late harvest and low yields!

This is past mid-August, and véraison is still at less than 50% — can you believe it?  The Doña Margarita Vineyard has no more than 5-10% color, and the Don Miguel is not much ahead of it. It’s a very difficult (and costly) year because of the high pressure of powdery mildew (oidium), especially with the puny organic materials that are not nearly as effective as the conventional ones — and much more expensive!

Very few bunches had this much color in the Doña Margarita Vineyard. Looking good, though!

We love the insectary patch below the vineyard, full of Queen Anne's Lace (we don't like their other name, wild carrot, as much).

Other than the organic sprays, aggressive leafing has been necessary as well as immediate removal of each berry that shows the first sign of mildew, even cluster thinning of any bunches that are lumped together, despite the low yields, to ensure the aeration of the canopy.

It was hot this week! Fortunately, after two hours of running in the Doña Margarita Vineyard Jim gave us a long drink of water ...

In our Don Miguel Vineyard, the Tempranillo has barely started véraison -- we're not going to pick that until October for sure!

The good news is that, although small and sparse, the bunches look really good. They are healthy and well balanced, while the vine rows are nicely trimmed and tidy.  Our vineyard team is doing an excellent job!

They've been doing sooo much leafing in the Don Miguel Vineyard... And it's been hot, too! We do feel bad for the vineyard team

And we got so messy, Patricia had to give us a bath! I love baths, but Chico hates them...

Véraison is finally arriving!!

This year is actually shaping up to be even later than last – which was the latest harvest in our history!  It has been a tough year so far and continues to be; at this stage, when normally we should be almost at 100% véraison, it is just beginning and only in a couple of blocks.  The fruit looks healthy, but that has not been easy; the threat of powdery mildew and botrytis, our natural arch-enemies due to our location so close to to the ocean, have been particularly severe with the cold weather we’ve had this year.

We are being professionally groomed these days! Our trainer not only exercises us and trains us 2-3 days a week, she also grooms us. We love it!!

Walking the Don Miguel Vineyard today, we finally saw the first signs of véraison, in the Swan clone!

A lot of work has gone into leafing the vines, hedging, and spraying the organic fungicides like Kaligreen and Sonata that provide some protection against those  dreadful fungi; we’ve had to increase the frequency compared to normal years, as well as extend it.  You see, due to their nature, organic fungicides are less effective than conventional ones — and more expensive.  We still see the threat of mildew, even though it should be over by now!

Leafing, hedging and cutting off laterals has been a non-stop activity this year!

In the cooler Doña Margarita Vineyard, botrytis came so early that many berries never had a chance -- it burned them and they dried up

On the Sonoma Coast, our Doña Margarita Vineyard is requiring an enormous amount of attention — but thanks to that, the  few clusters that survived the cool spring are looking very good indeed!

A consequence of the poor set was millerandage, or peas and pumpkins, which diminishes yields

But some Pinot Noir clusters look beautiful, like these in the Doña Margarita Vineyard!

Our new planting of Syrah and Tempranillo is doing terrific! We have two clones of Syrah, the 877 (from our own vineyard) and a new one, the 470, which we field grafted from dormant nursery wood last spring. These plants are growing neatly up the tube — but we really  find fall budding much preferable, since you really gain half a year. You see, by grafting from green budwood (our own) in August or September, now the plants are much more established and mature.

Found an excellent insectary patch below the vineyard, full of Queen Ann's Lace (also known as wild carrot). Can you see the lady bugs??

The closer rows, field grafted in the spring, are just coming out the tubes; whereas the vines we field budded last fall, in the background, are much more established

Today we walked the Don Miguel Vineyard -- the growth is just as astounding as in the Doña Margarita! The crew is working non-stop to keep the canopy in check. We also saw some powdery mildew (oidium) but it is practically gone and not a concern anymore.

Fortunately, this is the only cluster we could find in the vineyard with powdery mildew!

Leafing and hedging has been a non-stop job in the vineyard

Many vines, however, are showing good balanced clusters and excellent set

The young tempranillo vines look healthy and great!

A good example of 'coulure' or shatter: sparse berries in a cluster, due to poor weather at the time of pollinization and set.

Many vines show normal-size and tiny berries in the same cluster, another result of weather, commonly referred to as 'peas & pumpkins'.

Mom is back from Spain!

Other than the organic sprays, aggressive leafing has been necessary as well as immediate removal of each berry that shows the first sign of mildew, even cluster thinning of any bunches that are lumped together, despite the low yields, to ensure the aeration of the canopy.
July 14, 2011 

Mom and Cristina are back from Spain! Not that we missed them that much, really — we had a grand time while they were gone, with Cooper and his Mom, Susan. She took us to the beach (which of course gave Chico an ear infection) and we also swam in the pool and lounged on her patio. Truly, a dog’s life!

Swimming in the ocean at Stinson Beach was so much fun! The water was coooold and great

That’s only three of us, not six! Bonita and Cooper are definitely going steady…

 Today we went in the Doña Margarita Vineyard and saw the incredibly wild growth that has taken place with all the rains last month. Can you imagine 4 inches in one day?? And that was not all, of course. So it has been impossible to keep up with the shoot growth – the vineyard crew is scrambling. But they’ll soon have it all under control, hopefully it won’t rain anymore, and we’ll have beautiful Goldilocks weather to ensure a perfect harvest!

The shoot growth has been wild — look at them going in all directions!

A very organic way to get rid of gophers: a gopher snake is the perfect predator!

The Rainy Spring

Shoot tips and leaves in the Doña Margarita Vineyard are

yellow due to the cool, wet weather

One of the many yellow leaves


 



 



 

 

  

Persistent rain and cool conditions have dried
 the leaves near the tip (where the arrows point)

The rains and cold weather are driving us crazy!!  Mom wakes up in the night worried and wondering when they are going to stop… The consequences are showing especially in our Sonoma Coast’s Doña Margarita Vineyard, which is even cooler than the Russian River Valley. Signs of Pinot Noir “leaf curl”, with dead leaves near the tip, are everywhere; this is due to a build-up of toxic putrescine during wet, cool conditions. And also, leaves toward the top are yellow instead of green. As the season advances leaves will turn green and new ones will grow near the tip – but it’s sad to see them looking so “sick” now.Bloom is barely starting; we found just a few flowers in the upper area and none in the lower vineyard. Bu interestingly, last year we had 1% bloom on June 3rd — so the conditions were pretty similar to this year!  But we sure hope this will not be as difficult growing season as last year’s… 

The weather has not been very good this spring and we are about two weeks behind schedule in the growing season. The soil is very wet from all the recent rains and it's almost impossible to go in with the tractor!  But our vineyard team is very busy with the usual tasks of this time of year: weeding, mowing, suckering, etc. This new machine allows us to weed with a tractor instead of weed-whacking, which also minimizes fuel emmissions. The soil is "sliced" under the rows, so weeds are erradicated rather than cut up by hand. The Earthquake Block looks beautiful! You can imagine here the deep ravine we covered with earth, which after a storm in 1995 opened up and originated the name of the block!

This tender shoot and cluster of Albariño looks nothing like Chardonnay - but it's very pretty!

We've had some frost again this year, shown here in these tender shoots that look like burned. A secondary bud will likely come out, but it will be much less fruitful than the primary bud.

Setting up the bee hives was a fascinating project! Here Steve is shaking the cages where the bees came into the hive, while Mom sprays sugary water to entertain them

There were 10,000 bees in each cage!

This weekend we had a very fun project -- we set up our two bee hives! Steve, the "Bee King of Sonoma County", helped and directed us throughout. Of course we were not allowed to be around the bees, as Mom and Steve were worried that the bees might sting us. But we watched attentively from behind the fence as they set up the white-painted hives, took the bees out of their cages and shook them into the hives, then took eachqueen inside her cage and tied her to the board so the bees could get used to her. Then the next day we got the queens out and set each among their 10,000 subjects... they seemed to be getting along very well!

Spring is here and the buds are pushing in the Doña Margarita Vineyard!  The vines looks fantastic, as you can see.  The pictures tell more than a thousand words -- it is such a beautiful time in the vineyard!

The cover crop is about to be mowed, you can see how high it is -- perfect habitat for good predator insects!  We also walked the winery's Don Miguel Vineyard, in Russian River/Green Valley. Soon we will mow the cover crop, after it's gone to seed so next year most of it is self-seeded.

Unfortunately it was only me, Bonita, who went both days with Mom -- Chico had to stay because he just had leg surgery for a torn ligament.   He looked so longing when we left him at Mom's office on his leash...  :-(   He has 10 more days of rest to go, and won't be able to run for another 2 months. What a bummer!  But we give him lots of TLC so he is not too unhappy -- and many licks!!

Zach and the team walking down a mowed row. Below are our stables, and our beloved horses!

At the Don Miguel Vineyard, I listened attentively to Zach as he explained to me how important cover crop is, while Ventura looked on approvingly