by Mike Rogers- Vineyard Manager
After a long cool spring we are finally experiencing some growth in the vineyard. After bud-break on May 3 – 4, we had a couple weeks of beautiful warm (mostly) dry weather. At this point we are close to 3 weeks behind schedule compared to a typical year but the warm weather will help us catch up. The next milestone will be bloom (if it occurs by July 1st we should be harvesting around early October), which will tell us if the pace of the growth continues to lag and by how much.
For the full-time vineyard crew and myself the warm weather has meant long hours of feverishly disbudding the plants and mowing the tall grass between the rows. Disbudding is important because it limits the number of shoots and consequently grape clusters that each plant needs to feed. The buds remaining after this process will grow into healthy, well-fed shoots and clusters. Disbudding is done by hand and is one of the many steps we take to control quality and yield in the vineyard. A quick note about mowing- although the grass growing between the rows helps keep the soil surrounding the vines healthy (healthy soil = healthy vines), the grass can also compete with the vines for nutrients and water. We choose to mow every other row to keep a balance between these two needs. We will also choose to till between rows if the plants need more vigor.
For all you vineyard geeks out there, here are the stats:
Most of our vineyards are 7.5ft x 5ft (row width = 7.5ft, space between each vine = 5ft)
they are double-guyot (dual-cane) and we will leave 16-18 buds per plant.
The first exception is Terres Basses where the spacing is 7.5ft x 3.28ft (~1m). These vines are single-guyot and we will leave 11 buds per plant.
Triple Black Slopes and Emery blocks have a spacing of 7.5ft x 4ft and are double guyot. We will leave 14 buds per plant on these vines.
Next we have the Jory Hills Vineyard and our ‘Experimental Block’ (that is being farmed using Biodynamic practices) where the spacing is 6ft x 3ft. These vines are single-guyot and we will leave 9-10 buds per plant. A separate block in the ‘Experimental’ is planted to a density of 3ft x 3ft that are left with 7-8 buds per plant.
