Veraison is just starting at the Dona Margarita Vineyard!

Berries are just starting to color in our Doña Margarita Vineyard - way behind the Don Miguel	We made sure Filiberto, Zach and Tony paid close attention to the grapes!

Today we visited our Doña Margarita Vineyard in Sonoma Coast - which we LOVE because there we can run up and downhill non-stop! (Except when we have to pose for pictures). That's why Mom named the barrel selection from this Vineyard "Chico's Run"! Being just 6 or 7 miles from the Pacific Ocean, it is quite a bit cooler than our Russian River / Green Valley site, where by now many Pinot grapes look totally black. Harvest still seems about two weeks behind, but the current cool-ish weather may hasten it a bit. And we were all delighted to see that, in a year where powdery mildew has been a huge concern everywhere, our berries are clean and gorgeous. The vineyard team has been doing a fabulous job  the entire season, in the cold as well as in the heat!

This cute bee was enjoying the nectar from the beautiful Queen Anne's Lace flower in our natural 'insectary'

The vines are in full bloom!

Walking down the vineyard rows right now is a fabulous treat -- the subtle but incredibly fragrant aromas are irresistible! Of course, not all vines flower at the same time; first comes the Chardonnay, then the Pinot Noir, the Albariño, and the last are Syrah and Tempranillo. Many of the flowers have already finished bloom and are starting to lose their caps, becoming tiny grapes. Because vine flowers are self-pollinating, they don't need bees to become fruit. And this year they are doing their job very well!

The Chardonnay flowers are looking perfect this year! On the right, with their caps still on; left, they have become grapes; and middle, not flowered yet.

The Albariño vines are trained with one shoot going right and the next one left, in order to provide some shading and avoid sunburn	We managed to get some shade under the Albariño vines, while Filiberto, Tony and Zach discussed the proper training of the shoots

This huge tractor is cultivating the soil down to 5 feet, to remove any old roots, in preparation for our new Albariño planting	The Tempranillo vines are head pruned, in the classic style for this variety. You can see it seems to want to be trained that way!

The vines are growing very quickly with this beautiful weather!

The shoots are growing by leaps and bounds -- in fact we wish it was not so warm, since the quick growth will give us long internodes and thus more distant positions. But as farmers, we don't get to choose -- Mother Nature does!

Bloom is probably 2 or 3 weeks away -- hopefully just before Mom goes to Europe! She is leaving on May 19 -- and we know how sad she is to have to miss so much of the vineyard development at this time, when the vines change almost daily.

Some clusters at the 'pompom' phase -- you can see why they get this name!	Our 'Insectary' is starting to bloom -- in a few days it should be covered with lots of beautiful flowers!

Other than the vineyards, a few more things are going on -- like the new pizza oven we are building! It should be finished by next week, and then we will celebrate with a Team Party on May 9. Pizzas and BBQ!We are so looking forward to it, mostly because some treats are sure to come our way (and if not, Chico is great at stealing food, anyway).

Another exciting news item is that we already have a new bee hive. One of them did thrive this past season, but the second collapsed due to the insecticides that contain neonicotinoids. :-(  So Mom and our friends Millie & Tom, who live across the road, helped Steve (The Bee Master of Sonoma County, remember him??) and Dan get the new hive in. We will be harvesting a ton of honey from the 1st one soon -- we can't wait! 

 

The pizza oven is almost finished, then the BBQ willbe back next to it	The first bee hive is doing great, and the second one has just gone in!

The Buds are Breaking - it must be Spring!

 We love this weather, it's great for running in the vineyard -- and the new buds are sooo cute!

Finally, bud break arrived! Not that it's late, mind you -- this year everything is right on time. Bud break came in mid March, and fortunately we had finished pruning as scheduled, by late February. Then we had some heavy rains, as much as 3.5 inches, but they only lasted a week in early April. Ever since, the weather has been quite beautiful -- now we only want it to last until flowering, which should happen in early May. The timely rains have added up to slightly more than last year's total rainfall to date, which is still below average for our region -- but not bad.  We are intent on not letting gophers invade our vineyards this year; using traps, we have caught about 200 at the Doña Margarita Vineyard and more than 100 at the Don Miguel. Yaay!  Our only regret is, WE  haven't been able to catch a SINGLE one. But we keep trying!

A young bud of Tempranillo, looking very healthy!	The Chardonnay shoots are fruitful, with two clusters. Many have wings, promising good sized bunches

Pruning is in the last stages!

We are done with pruning in the Don Miguel Vineyard and the crew has moved on to Sonoma Coast and the Doña Margarita Vineyard. This year it has taken longer to prune because we had a late start with the December rains. Besides, we have been able to use a new organic product to paint the pruning wounds and prevent Eutypa, the feared wood fungus that can go inside the trunk and kill the vine. But it takes a long time to paint all the cuts!

The last parcel of Pinot Noir was pruned this week. While the rest of the crew prunes in the background, Alfredo goes after them and paints the cuts to prevent Eutypa.	This young vine in the Doña Margarita Vineyard thinks it's already spring and has budded out several leaves!

We went for a walk in the Doña Margarita Vineyard, which we love because there are sooo many gophers there!! We ran up and down the rows and tried so hard to catch one -- but no way, we couldn't. Not a single one. Darn! We are indeed a bit behind in pruning, as it will take almost a month to do the 20 acres of that vineyard. Fortunately we've been lucky with the weather so hopefully we'll finish before bud break ... we don't have a choice!

We both worked really hard here as we could smell the gopher -- but although we made a humongous hole, we couldn't get him

Pruning is on the way big time!

Not much happens during the winter, while the vines are dormant, except for pruning -- but that's no small feat. Pruning will very much affect the vine's development during the growing season, its balance and the canopy. And balanced vines produce balanced wines!

This is a cane-pruned vine, where the two arms have become too distant from each other. To re-train it, we leave a sucker that next year can be trained to form a perfect cane.	And this is a cane-pruned vine that we have re-trained. Last year's sucker has become the new cane, so now the two arms are close to each other and will make for a  perfectly balanced canopy.

We found a really well pruned cordon vine! Look at the perfect positions of each cordon arm: four on the  right and four on the left.	This is the 'snaggletooth' pruning system that we have developed for Albariño. It forms a divided canopy without a double arm that would make the vine  much bigger and negatively impact quality.

We had a lot of good company yesterday! Besides our friend Molly, Tony's cute and smart dog, this little puppy was so much fun -- we  ran and ran together!	Digging for gophers is a fabulous part of our vineyard walks! We took turns at getting in the hole -- but no, we didn't catch a single gopher. Just ended up really messed up with mud!

Harvest is in full swing!

This is one fast and furious harvest! No complaints from anybody, though -- everyone is happy as can be, working as hard as they can. The vineyard crew loves to pick at night, starting at 3 am (brrrr.... we're still sleeping at that time) and as soon as dawn breaks, Mom takes us to wherever they are picking with fresh coffee and donuts; and for the health conscious, fruit and almonds! We love that -- and sometimes, after much begging (when Mom isn't looking), one of the guys gives us a piece of donut!

Coffee feels good on those misty, cool Green Valley mornings at break of dawn	We won't get a treat while Mom is looking -- but when she turns her back, begging bears fruit!

On clear mornings, picking at sunrise can  paint a beautiful picture	Last week we had some HOT days! The crew suffered the sun bravely, but WE needed shade

The clusters this year look more picture-perfect than any time in memory! The berries are good-sized  but not too big, juicy and well formed. Judge for yourself from the pictures below -- taken by our viticulturist, Zach Berkowitz, who not only knows a lot about vines but also about photographs!

Albariño	Chardonnay	Tempranillo

We have picked by now all our Pinot Noir and Albariño, which have both given us outstanding fruit and very good yields.  Some of the Chardonnay has been harvested, too; we're about mid way with that. Yields are mid-size, great fruit so far. The Tempranillo is always the last one to come in, but as you can see it looks gorgeous! We will probably pick that at the same time as the Syrah, which although not pictured, looks promising!

Pinot Noir