Tuesday 10 October 2017

Fall in the Vineyard

October is here and before we got too full from turkey dinners, a lot was going on in the vineyard

This year wine was made from Siegerrebbe, L'Acadia Blanc, Chardonnay, Osceolo Muscat, Madeleine Angevine and Sylvaner, Epicure, Amiel, 48-05-83, Labelle and Leon Millot. That is a pretty good harvest! Some of our shorter rows had low yield, so I expect there will be a bit of blending going on.

Petite Milo had very nice looking fruit but sadly I think too much was left on and it never really got above 17 brix, and much of the fruit on inner parts of the bunches was only at 14-15 Brix. Lesson learned for next year.

At this point the vineyard is set for winter. Irrigation has been repaired and the system drained and all the bird netting has been rolled away for next year.

Below is a final tally of the Brix readings for this year. Bracketed numbers are the final 2016 readings.

WHITES

Siegerrebbe: 18 (2016 20.5 brix). Large cluster with large berries. Picked this at 18 this year in order to hold the acid levels.

L'Acadia Blanc: 21 (2016 21.5 brix). Loose cluster and medium size berries

Chardonnay: 18 (fruit removed to powdery mildew in 2016). Medium size clusters and berries

Osceolo Muscat: 21 (2016 19.5 brix). Loose cluster, but large with medium berries

Auxerrois: 18 (fruit removed due to powdery mildew in 2016). Very little fruit this year due to heat stress

Madeleine Angevine: 20.5 (fruit removed due to powdery mildew in 2016). Medium to Large berries and large cluster

Madeleine Sylvaner: 19.5 (fruit removed due to powdery mildew in 2016). Large clusters and berries

Epicure:  18 (2016 19 brix). Loose clusters with medium berries

Petite Milo: 17 (2016 21 brix). Medium size clusters and berries.

Amiel: 18 (2016 20.5 brix) - Large clusters and berries


RED

48-05-83: 18 (2016 17.5 brix). Medium cluster and berries

Labelle: 18 (2016 21 brix). Loose clusters, small berries

Baco Noir: 19 (2016 16 brix). Very little fruit this year due to heat stress.

Zweigelt: 17 (2015 20 brix). Very little fruit this year due to heat stress.

Leon Millot: 21 (2016 20.5 brix). Medium bunches with medium berries

Pinot Noir:18 (2016 17.5 brix). Loose medium size bunches with medium berries

Regent: 18 (2016 18 brix). Very little fruit this year due to heat stress.

In a lot of cases slightly lower numbers then 2016. It is possible we could have tried to hang the fruit a bit longer; however our weather did take a bit of a cool turn so it likely would not have made too much of a difference. While our summer was quite hot and dry, I think overall our season was a bit shorter this year given the cool spring and early fall temperatures.

As always comments are appreciated,

Sunday 10 September 2017

September Brix readings

As of September 11 most of the hanging fruit is looking nice.  We did not loose any fruit to powdery mildew this year and all the vines look very healthy - from a disease perspective at least. As note in the previous Blog we do have some heat stress indicators with a few varieties dropping fruit. 

Varieties that members are hoping to make wine from have all been covered with bird and insect netting. Good job all! I think all the whites are spoken for and 3 reds so it will be great to see how it all turns out.

A quick walk through with the refractometer provided the following sugar content numbers.  Brix were measured by testing 3 to 4 grapes at various locations on each row. 2016 measurements were gathered on September 4 and are shown in brackets. 

WHITES

Siegerrebbe: 17.5 (2016 19 brix). Large cluster with large berries

L'Acadia Blanc: 18.5 (2016 18 brix). Loose cluster and medium size berries

Chardonnay: 15 (fruit removed to powdery mildew in 2016). Medium size clusters and berries

Osceolo Muscat: 19 (2016 18 brix). Loose cluster, but large with medium berries

Auxerrois: 16 (fruit removed due to powdery mildew in 2016). Very little fruit this year due to heat stress 

Madeliene Angevine 15 (fruit removed due to powdery mildew in 2016). Medium to Large berries and large cluster

Madeliene Sylvaner 17 (fruit removed due to powdery mildew in 2016). Large clusters and berries

Epicure: 15.5(2016 15.5 brix). Loose clusters with medium berries

Petite Milo: 17 (2016 19.5 brix). Medium size clusters and berries. 

Amiel: 16.5 (2016 16 brix) - Large clusters and berries


RED

48-05-83: 16.5 (2016 15.5 brix). Medium cluster and berries

Labelle: 16.5 (2016 16 brix). Loose clusters, small berries

Baco Noir: 16 (2016 15 brix). Very little fruit this year due to heat stress.

Zweigelt: 17 (2015 16.5 brix). Very little fruit this year due to heat stress.

Leon Millot: 20 (2016 19 brix). Medium bunches with medium berries

Pinot Noir:17 (2016 17 brix). Loose medium size bunches with medium berries 

Regent: 15 (2016 15 brix). Very little fruit this year due to heat stress.

Some of the fruit is on par with last years numbers and in some case a bit behind. Slightly surprised by this given the hot/dry summer we had. Any thoughts?  All in all I think our numbers over the last 3 years are pretty consistent, which bodes well, since all three years were quite different weather wise.

As always comments are appreciated,

Tuesday 1 August 2017

Summer Heat Wave

July is at its end and the conditions in the vineyard are dryer then I ever recall. Most of the varieties at the bottom of the vineyard look quite stressed and vines throughout have started to drop the fruit. There has been a lot of irrigation this past week, so lets hope that they recover for the fruit that remains. At least from a visible perspective, the Blattner varieties seem to be handling the drought the best with minimal fruit loss or signs of stress. In addition Mad Angie and Mad Sylvaner look very healthy this year.

At this point all the fruit from Regent, Baco Noir, Zweigelt and Auxerrois have been impacted, although Zweigelt and Auxerrois did not have much this year anyway.

Leon Millot, Pinot Noir, L'Acadia Blanc,  Chardonnay, Osceola Muscat and Seigerebbe are about 10-20% impacted.

Shrivelled berries on Osceola Muscat
Asides from the drought condition, the vines look good and none show any signs of powdery mildew, black rot or other diseases. This is really good, as usually at this time we have some. I think this is a direct relation to the vine maintenance that is been ongoing this year. Kudos to all  the volunteers doing their bit to maintain the vines.

Irrigation will continue and hopefully reduce any further stress issues. check back for updates later in the summer,





Monday 26 June 2017

Bloom is slowly happening

June is nearly over and the long awaited sunshine and heat has arrived. We are still a bit behind last year, but closing the gab a bit. As you recall we had a very early spring in 2016, then it kind of went into the tank for a bit. By the end of June 2016 all the vines were into bloom and some had moved into fruit set.

For this year only a handful have started to bloom and there is nothing close to fruit set yet. As of June 25:

Whites:

Siegerrebbe, Chardonnay, Madeleine Sylvaner and Angevine, Auxerrois:
None have shown and bloom yet.

L'Acadia Blanc, Osceolo Muscat,  Petite Milo, Epicure and 48-05-49: 
All of these are into bloom. The Osceolo and Petite are the furthest along.
An example of bloom


















Reds

Zweigelt, Pinot Noir, Regent, 48-0-83, Baco Noir,
none have shown any bloom yet. The Zweigelt has suffered quite a bit from the winter and is quite a bit behind other varieties.

Labelle, Leon Millot:
These two are into Bloom.

As always, comments and feedback is encouraged.  Hopefully we get some sustained sunshine and heat and get our fruit on!

Tuesday 23 May 2017

Spring 2017 Update

I am a bit late in getting this post out, so it will be a summary of the data over the past few weeks.

We are well behind last year at this point. In 2016 all our vines had shoots by late April. this year, we still have vines in the bud swell stage as of May 22.  Hopefully our weather is on the upswing and we see some prolonged sunshine.

I have misplaced the May 16 data, but I think the data from the dates below gives us a clear picture on where things are at.


Whites (May 2, 2017):

Osceolo Muscat, Petite Milo, L'Acadia Blanc:  Bud swell 

Auxerrois, Madeleine Sylvaner; , 48-05-49, Chardonnay,  Siegerrebe, Madeleine Angevine, Epicure: were ranging from bud to early bud swell.

Whites (May 22, 2017):

Osceolo Muscat, Petite Milo, L'Acadia Blanc, Auxerrois, Madeleine Sylvaner; , 48-05-49, Chardonnay,  Siegerrebe, Madeleine Angevine, Epicure: All varieties had achieved bud burst and had shoots ranging from 1 cm to 4 cm. 




Reds (May 2, 2017):

Baco Noir, Leon Millot:  These were at the advanced bud swell stage and very close to shoots.

Regent, 48-05-83, Pinot Noir, Zweigelt, LaBelle, Regent:  these were all only at the early bud stage  



Reds (May 22, 2017)

Baco Noir, Leon Millot, Regent, LaBelle, Pinot Noir: All varieties had achieved bud burst and had shoots ranging from 1 cm to 3 cm. 

48-05-83,  Zweigelt:   These 2 are struggling and still at advanced bus stage. 48.05.83 has may 5% at burst. Last year Zweigelt was one of our earlier vines, so it obviously does not like these cool springs.


Tuesday 18 April 2017

Climate Data 2016

This Blog post is a bit later than normal, but it took us a bit of time to get all the units collected and then took me more time to get them all downloaded and the information compiled. Better late then never!

2016 marks the end of our 5 year climate study and as in 2015 a few experienced some problems downloading.  Out of the 38 units we installed, 13 experienced some type of problem and we could not get any data from them. Unfortunately many of the damaged units came from the Fauquier/Needles region so no data for this region was available for 2016.


Looking at our frost free days, we do see an increase again this year. In many locations, there had not been a fall frost occurrence until well into November.

For our purposes we used “slight” frost as our parameter, using 0°C for our last spring frost and -2°C for our first fall frost.  

Frost Free Days (FFD)
Region
2014
2015
2016
Nakusp
191
192
195
Arrow Park
175
192
201
Burton
177
187
210
Needles/Fauquier
171
182
*Data from this area was corrupt and FFD were not available.



We expected that our 2015 was a warmer year, and for the most part it was.  We had more FFD and most areas showed an increase in GDD. 

Growing Degree Days (GDD) is a measure of heat accumulation used to predict plant development rates such as the date that a crop will reach maturity. GDD is calculated by taking the average of the daily maximum and minimum temperatures minus a base temperature, (in our case 10 °C).  The yearly GDD is cumulative throughout the growing season (April 1 to October 31).

Growing Degree Days (GDD)

Region
2014
2015
2016
Nakusp
1033
1011
1062
Arrow Park
997
1057
1020
Burton
1077
1116
1082
Needles/Fauquier
1060
1099
Data from this area was corrupt and GDD were not available.