Rootstock 2009!

GER102: Pruning the Vidal

We ended up at the vineyard this weekend, instead of my parents, as i have come down sick again. second weekend in a row, but it cant be helped. i slept all day yesterday and while i felt ok enough to go down to the farm today, we got there pretty late—around 1:30-noon. ger has scheduled the lot 11 pruning to be finished within 3 weekends, so its important to be at the vineyard. with the 2 acres to be planted in april, its important to use every weekend we may.

ger gave me a second lesson in pruning the 2 year old vidal in lot 11. up until this time, i had thought that the thicker canes were the ones to establish along the cordon wire, but that's not exactly so. some of the thicker canes had more than a hand's width between bud breaks. in those instances, ger had me look at a less thick cane that shot off from the thicker cane. if the buds were spaced tighter than the thicker cane, i was to clip off (oh boy) the thicker cane and train the thinner cane along the cordon. ger said that this would give us more fruit in less space with room to grow along the cordon for next year.

my head was too thick today to really feel like i would be making good decisions, so i made the best decision of the day. i told ger i would get the vines prepped for his final decision and training to the cordon wire. this meant i would choose which canes would stay and which canes could be snipped. if i couldn't decide between a thicker cane or a thinner cane, i would leave both and strip down the rest of the canes. it most likely wasn't the most time efficient way to work the pruning, but i felt better when i didn't have to struggle bending the vines to the wire—thats a bit nerve-wrecking when i'm feeling on top of my game.

uncle pete came over to check in and help us finish the last row. they had just returned from the west coast. he said they watched bottle shock on the plane—man, i wish that movie would show up on fios on-demand, but i don't think its gonna happen.

in the end we finished two rows, with a third of a row somewhat stripped. we'll work tomorrow, as well. i think we have 9 more rows to go. ger is in the wine room, racking the 08 and the boy1&2 have just finished roasting marshmellows. i planned on making bread pudding and working on kayleigh's sailor valentine, but i'm thinking maybe its just time for bed.

Pruning Lot 11

this past weekend, gerald taught me how to prune and train the two year old vidal vines in lot 11 to the cordon wire. its the best type of work possible: its both physically and mentally engaging—each vine is quite different, so the work is never quite routine—and when you are done, you can look down a row and say, "i did that!" plus, the vines look clean, sharp, and autere and the rows have a feel of discipline to them.

the work was not the easiest of work, tho. i was very conscious of my lack of experience and was worried i would make a wrong cut or break a cordon. gerald is a gracious teacher—very patient, always ready to stop work to answer a question or to weigh in on a choice i was about to make. it had to be hard, since it took him away from work himself. pruning the vidal went a bit like this:

1. assess the vine structure and determine which of the possible cordons you will keep. you only need two.
2. trim back the cordon vine, snipping where the vine's diameter is the thickness of a pencil and right before an unwanted bud. this gives the last bud that you do want a fighting chance and also tells you if that cordon is alive. which you want to determine before you brutally snip off all of the remaining, unwanted cordons.
3. strip the vine of the extraneous shoots, leaving the straightest cordon, possible.
   
4. train the cordon to suck it up and grow as upright as possible. we do this by straightening the cordons and then securing them to a bamboo pole that is secured to the cordon wire.
5. cross the cordons across each other, making as small of a V as possible. that's tricky. the cordons didnt often want to be trained in the given direction. they were stiff from being dormant and they are thick. one needed to have a firm, but gentle hand in shaping the cordons to the wire. i followed gerald's lead very closely. sometimes i wasnt sucessful or too fearful and he would have to come back and rework the vine a little bit. it became better as it went on.
6. review the vine and admire it. snip off any old dead growth that was missed and move on to the next vine.
   

as we pruned, gerald pointed out the pruning at the bottom of the hill where uncle pete (ec pete) was working. uncle pete had remarked to him that while the work wasnt hard, physical labor, the thought and the shaping does where him out. by the end of the day, i knew exactly what uncle pete was talking about.

i know gerald was happy to have us out in the field with him. i love to work with him in the vineyard, especially in lot 11. its a big, sweeping field, with big sweeping work. we were able to prune 2 and 2/3 rows of the vidal, working from 10am til 4:30. this was the longest period of time i've been able to work in the field. ger was gunning for 3 rows, but boy2 is still small and rather tender. the boys are good sports, always, working and playing next to us, attempting to build tree houses by themselves, playing with each other and napping in the truck cab. but done is done. sunday, gerald worked in the wine room, racking the 08's and making me taste very green wine while i struggled to find just the right typeface for the port of leonardtown winery.

the best part of saturday was talking to gerald—planning and dreaming and laughing and teasing with each other. and then gerald took us out to arizona pizza for dinner and that was the best part—eating and relaxing with the family. and then we went home and that was the best part—gerald laughing at me in the all pink flannel pyjammies the boys bought me for christmas...with the bonus headband.

Wine Fest Great Fun for All

http://www.thebaynet.com/news/index.cfm/fa/viewstory/story_ID/10297
way back in october, gerald volunteered to participate in wine-making demos for Wine Fest, held at the Sotterly Plantation. the link above tells you all about it, plus ger is featured in several of the photos in the accompanying slide show at the end of the article. he is a handsome guy, that one.

Postcard from the Sabbatical

we're a little too sick, a little too tired to check up on this, but we believe half-way through the harvest and on into november, the little blog machine postings sputter stops until sometime in december. this break is a little longer than previous years (all two), but we are still all about the vineyard and producing wine.

ger is working the wine, getting a jump on the pruning, and is preparing for the great april planting—tentatively called rootstock'09. i'm polishing the port of leonardtown winery logo, discovered the joys of twittering, and recently finished my ethics class. boys1&2 are doing great—learning to read, playing the trumpet, making gingerbreadhaus, finishing football, and PLAYING Wii!

merry christmas and happy holidays to all! ger and i raise a glass of prosecco to you all.

i hope you are all blessed in your lives as we are with ours. visit soon!

Sangiovese 2007

While shopping for Thanksgiving this year, I came across a Virginia Sangiovese 2007 from Afton Mountain Vineyards. A 2007 release? Already? Could it be?
Having recently sampled our own 2007 and finding it happily fruity and delicious but still maybe a bit young(?), I had to get this bottle to compare our own against something of commercial quality.
There was immediate anticipation of the match-up: Two wines, same grape, same Mid-Atlantic region (them west of Charlottesville in the Blue Ridge, and us South of Washington close to the Chesapeake Bay), same year.
So it was we popped the Afton Mountain Sangiovese cork over Thanksgiving dinner...and...

There is something in both of these wines that someone tasting blind could, possibly, draw a conclusion that they are borne from one in same grape variety. I also think there is a distinct difference between these and their Tuscan counterparts. Both MA wines have strong red fruit flavor of cherries. Yes, that's a hallmark of Italian Sang, but all the IS I've sampled always hinted at cherries. These MA Sangs actually, well, sang out "cherry". I'm sure in Italy the wines do the same, but I'd guess they keep those wines for themselves and the stuff that makes it across the pond is merely a semblance of the original, like making a copy of a copy of a copy: All the basic information is there for sure, but the elegance and clean lines are gone, lost in the translation from original to copy to copy-of-the-copy.

Procrastination

i've got plenty to blog, with over 1,600 pounds of seyval/vidal/viognier/marsanne/sangiovese harvested, processed and stomped. we had plenty of people helping with the harvest and stomp. i have plenty of images and stories—but i'm procrastinating. its that time of year and i always dork posting harvest. i'll get to it. meanwhile, enjoy my phrase-stylings on twitter. yes, i will get to it!

this weekend, we harvest touriga and tinte cao. looking for stompers!

No Harvest this Weekend

EC Pete tested the vidal this past wednesday and due to the cooler weather and rain, the harvest has been put off until next weekend. ger is thinking that next weekend will be a large harvest of several varieties and wants us to be there. this weekend we are smushing in time for my family, as all my family is born in the month of september. ec pete and ger's dad will pick up the slack in our absence and next week, everyone will be down--including wc pete, who is flying back in to help out with the harvest.

next weekend, i will create another widgenie widget that tracks our red varietal brix levels. we started last week, but i don't have the stats with me. stay tuned!

Diversions

hanna canceled boy1's football game, but gerald will keep his plan to travel to the vineyard and continue with the brix testing, ph testing, and inspect the vineyard to make sure all is well. i'll call him tomorrow and get the brix in order to update the widget.

i'm keeping my plan to give the boys a bit more variety in their weekend diet of farm, farm, farm. we're staying home, out of the weather, near their friends, and later we will experiment with the homemade cheese kit we purchased from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company — mozzarella cheese in 30 minutes! (i'm hoping it will be easy and tasty enough so that i can work my way through leeners.com's cheese making web pages!) i stopped making our own bread due to the heat of summer, but i think i might crank up a batch so that we can make our own pizza tonight. too bad i went with a flower garden this year instead of my usual tomato patch, or we could competely imitate barbara kingsolver for one night!

Tracking Hanna

2008 Seyval Harvest

Despite the 8/10 an inch of rain the night before, gerald tested the brix of the seyval, munched a few grapes and announced that the seyval harvest was on. so gerald&i, dad byrne, and uncle pete gathered in the proofing vineyard early on saturday and harvested the seyval blanc. the weather was overcast, cool, but humid. everyone was ready to harvest quickly and process the grapes back to pete&lyrel's farmhouse. our hoped-for lugs did not come through, but we had our buckets from the previous year and with 2 previous harvests under our belts, felt comfortable that we would be able to harvest without issue.

three quarters into harvesting 361 pounds of delicious white grapes and we realized we did not have enough containers. the boys decided to send me to the hardware store with boy1&2 for more containers. half way to the store and my surprise visitors—my mom and dad—called to tell me they had arrived. for boy2, this was especially funny: "your mom and dad? your mom and dad will be at the farm? mimi? grandpa? but why would they be at the farm?" it tickles the 5 year old when the world does not operate on its usual spin cycle. upon seeing their mimi and grandpa, the boys wanted to show the farm off and so ger's dad was then dispatched to the hardware store.



we gave a tour of the proofing vineyard, the treehouse in progress (and the desperate need for a zip line from the treehouse to the tobacco barn), lot 11 and the second year vines, the christmas trees their daddy planted when he was a boy, and the pawpaw patch. after the tour, we walked back up the big hill, met up with the harvest crew and headed back to pete&lyrel's house for grape processing.

this harvest was a little unusual. if you look at the sea of seyval berries in the photo above, you will see tiny, hard little grape berries among the clusters of seyval. gerald speculates these hard green little grape berries are the product of the unusually wet and extremely hot weather during bloom. uncle pete wonders if it isn't part of how the varietal grows—but at any rate, ger decided that what we were calling the "little green bebes" must not enter the crush. so the hand processing of the grapes included the removal of the offending immature grape berries. and there were many immature grape berries to be removed.

here is the 2008 sevyal processing gang. harvest was over by 10am. we started the processing shortly after and did not finish until after 4pm. we sorted the grapes, but found that there were so many immature green grapes, that it largely became a huge hand destemming operation. luckily, the back porch is wide, cool, and catches nice breezes. all sorted and destemmed grapes went into the big grey crush tub, newly purchased for this harvest. 361 pounds would take forever to crush in the small, crush diva stainless steel tub. the white trash bags in the grey tub contained bags of ice to keep the berries and juice chilled. after the sort and partial destemming, i jumped into the tub and started the stomp. i stomped and stomped. we realized that all the berries wouldn't be crushed in the large tub—there was too much room for the berries to escape underfoot. ger scooped out juice, berries and pomace, strained out the juice and sent me stomping the remaining pomace/berry mixture. i think we finished the crush about 7pm. by then i was stickier than i had ever been. i had crushed by foot and by hand. at one point, i considered crushing by just rolling in the tub. i was tired. so much for the goddess of stomp! ger and his dad started the pressing after i had crushed enough berries. i got dinner going about 7pm, but they didn't finish until after 8 with the press and processing of the juice.

throughout the day, the largest part of the conversation centered around enthusiasm for the port of leonardtown winery, the need for larger capacity equipment, and the need for a larger labor pool. heh. it loomed large in our minds.

the boys and i do not make up a full time, dedicated worker the likes of gerald, pete, uncle pete or dad byrne. we will also engaged elsewhere for the season, so i would like to extend a personal invitation to all friends of the farm—no matter their age or ability—to help my husband and his family get through this awkward, middle stage of growth. there is plenty of work for all. if you are a local friend of the farm family, its probably best to contact bernard byrne in order to coordinate labor.

posting, such as it has been for this year, will likely become more sporadic, as well, but keep checking in. thanks to all. its been fun.

Seyval Harvest this upcoming weekend!

The brix levels are in and gerald says we will harvest the seyval next week!

Prepare to be Zazzled.

another blog not about the vineyard? what's going on? football season has started and practice coincided with the august southern maryland wine growers cooperative meeting. momma&theboys stayed at home and gerald covered the meeting and vineyard work. unfortunately, no brix measurements this week. maybe next week.

but take a look at this!
i know! so before you ask, what is that?, i'm going to tell you. these are women's mini-slip on keds and custom notecards. i opened a zazzle.com account and, using the french oak barrel photo, created a custom designed shoe. and then for good measure, i created a notecard using the french oak barrel, as well. if you would like to see the ourvineyard product line, visit: http://www.zazzle.com/pd/find?qs=ourgirl

There, you will see the custom products i made today. check in every once in a while. boy1 and i have some cool ideas. maybe you'll find something you like!

What's up with the Widgets?

have you noticed the widget on the left? its a widget that will track the brix of our grape varietals as we progress weekly through to harvest. i made it in widgenie, a widget maker that creates animated charts from an excel spreadsheet. its simple and easy to use. the best part is that you can grab the widget code and embed it into your own social media. whenever i update the widget, your embedded widget will update, as well. so feel free to grab it and share with friends. widgenie recognized our blog's use of their product in their latest email.










you'll also notice that you can now subscribe to an RSS feed of the blog. and if you like, i also offer a widget blog feed that's quite pretty. i made that one in spring widget—that's where i found the RSS feed of Mike Steinberger/Slate Wine Articles. Mike writes really well and i enjoy all of his articles. spring widget is easy to use and i recommend using it and sproutbuilder, another widget maker.

feel free to share!

Veraison

veraison is well underway

Veraison started a little over two weekends ago in the proofing vineyard. the seyval is well underway, as it is our early grape. they are delicious! those boys can grow some lush seyval. the rest of the grapes are turning their colors, but taste of tannin and green peppers, so boy1 and i concentrate our attention to the seyval until ger shooes us out. the sevyal tastes tartly of apple and cinnamon. its a great treat to eat a grape berry you know is ripe and warm in the late morning sun. but we do this all in the name of developing a sense for when the grape is ripe, of course.


the weather is unseasonably cool and crisp, so much more like september than august. where are our dog days? ger is happy for both the cool weather and veraison, which signals the vines to STOP WITH THE VINE AND LEAF GROWING and concentrate on the fruit ripening. from here on out leaf canopy management should be easier. after we put up the netting last saturday (a whole other post) we woke up the next morning and culled the grape clusters. for a layperson like me, it looks wasteful. that's alot of grapes in that cart. we do add them to the compost, but culling is necessary. we want to concentrate on producing the best grape berries and so by cutting the third cluster (ger was at times, more aggressive) of every lateral shoot, the vine then concentrates on ripening the remaining clusters, producing a sweeter harvest. gerald is also pretty happy with the cool weather, which he says will slow the ripening and produce a more complex flavored grape.

wc pete returned back to washington this past week. the leaf canopy is still quaking from the heavy hand of his unmerciful rule. i'll post about the netting, next.

this weekend, we have begun testing the brix level of our grapes.

Home Port

ger's christmas present gets put to good use.

Ger has determined that his small french oak barrel will be used in our first attempt to create port-like wine. to the left you see the barrel being prepped. the barrel was dry, so the first step was to fill the barrel with the cold, 10,000 year old water (thanks, pete and lyrel!) from the aqueduct under charlotte hall. the water swelled the wood together to give it a tight fit. the water was emptied and the barrel plugged until the ingredients were mixed.



ger and wc pete mixed 100g or tartaric acid, 5.625lb of cane sugar, 7 liters of 40 proof brandy into a blend of our '07 harvest. our blend consisted of 3 gal. touriga, 1 gal. tinta cao, 1 gal morvedre, and our big dog: 3 gal. sangiovese. they then topped the barrel off with another .5 gal of our mourvedre. since the port will be aged in his barrel, we expect the colour will oxidize to tawny and hope the wine will take on a soft, nutty flavor. all of this happened in late june/early july, but i've been waiting for my summer grad class, information management, to finish so i could post without guilt. about a week or two later, gerald drew a sample from the barrel and a sample from a small, control bottle that wont be oaked. we all could taste the difference that oak brings to the wine. and i'm with lyrel's opinion that what wine is offered in American markets is often heavy on the oak. but for the port, i liked both oaked and non oaked. the oak seemed to smooth out the wine and gave it a spiced sort of taste. to this simple tongue, it tasted like it was on its way and ger and i traded that "hee, this is so cool" grins.

now it is a patient wait. ger estimates it might take the port 3 years to mature in the oak. he's looking into that part. me, i look forward to being back at the townie and enjoying our own fortified dessert wine on those crisp, cool, late fall evenings. we'll pore a small bit into a glass after we've had a bit to eat and settle into conversation—maybe we'll even be able to sit in our backyard and admire the colours of the sycamores and watch nature prepare the lake for the winter.

i feel cooler already.

Long Hot Summer

WC Pete is in town and he's working hard in the vineyards. canopy management, working the lateral shoots and more. the family has joined him for the summer, so we have plenty of kid power and playmates for boys1&2—for which they are grateful. the days are long, hot and humid, although this year has, on the whole, been cooler and wetter than the previous years. ger has been in the wine room working the whites and reds. i'm pretty happy to report that the wine from last season's harvest is coming along tastily!

Taming New Frontiers

hazy early morning in what we refer to as lot 11, the vidal vineyard, or the east vineyard

Our frontier acre of vidal is looking a bit more tame—a sort of civilization of shoots is growing from the lunar landscape of the previous year. the frequent rain we have been receiving has been a blessing in making sure the tender vines make it through their first year, so we haven't had to worry about getting water up the big hill. its been a pretty wet season so far.

compounding the lack of blog posts has been our heavy scheduling of graduations, boy2's birthday, maryland vineyard field days/girl1's birthday, momma's summer grad class [information management!], and boy1 fracturing his toe in two places. our precious vineyard hours on the weekend have been getting chewed up from bleed over of our weekday life. west coast pete has arrived just in time to get the leaf canopy management under control.

here is the last image i have of work i've been able to contribute to the vineyard. right after the several weekend of weekday bleed overs, boy1 fractured his toe and was unable to go to the vineyard. yes, those are plastic ties. remember when i was part of the bamboo stake pounding brigade? now the vines are starting their disciplined life of training to stakes, wires, and trellising. i walked the vidal vineyard, twisting the plastic ties around the bamboo stakes and the first cordon wire.




that day gerald worked in the vineyard with me, reviewing the health of the leaves and training the tender shoots to the bamboo stakes with plastic tape. the plastic tape is gentle to the vines—it doesn't cut or tear into the vine—but holds them firmly to the stake so they have good support as they clamber up to the sky. boy2 and i will be happy to have boy1 able to be back in the vineyard again. boy2 will have his playmate again, and i will be able to participate in the vineyard more fully. right now, i've been limited to taking images and doing an occasional walk-thru. but its also been great hanging with the boys outside the vineyard, working on my coursework, and catching up on old hobbies.

Love is in the Air!

connie's post
spring is here, and with it comes the desire for procreation. even the ladybugs are getting into the act. hope you are in love this spring, too.

Paw Paws!

connie's post:
I can't tell you how happy i was to discover the young paw paw trees in the tall tree clearing. the clearing is a small circle of empty space and sits at the base of the far field and ends at a dry creek bed. it is nice to walk into, as the shade from the tall trees makes the little alcove cool and inviting.

paw paw trees are small, under canopy trees. in the early fall, they bear fruit that tastes like banana pudding. that is, if you can manage to get to the fruit before the squirrels do! i have been searching for a stash of paw paw trees for a while, so it was exciting to discover a patch right at the farm!

i was introduced to paw paws by my paternal grandpa. i remember when i was a little girl, we went on a little hike up the small hills next to the big river, where my grandparents had retired. my grandpa pulled a paw paw off the tree and with his pocket knife, sliced open the fruit. he must have known about the stash, since he pulled a teaspoon out of his flannel shirt pocket and scooped the fruit out for us to taste. by then, i was used to foraging for blackberries, persimmons, and walnuts—but i still remember the utter delight in discovering something so delicious to eat in the forest. it was like a little treasure.

i look forward to introducing the boys to paw paws. they were not initially enthused about persimmons and the pucker power unripe persimmons have. i do think they will enjoy the paw paws better.

bon appetit!