2018 Fall in the Vineyard

Well here it is mid-September and I am left wondering where the summer went. The big heat of August was masked by the surge of smoke that engulf the area, blocking out the sunshine when it was needed the most. While there were notable fires in the area, we were thankfully spared from any major destruction. The smoke did, however, set us back in the vineyard.  We do need to get some fall sunshine to our sugars up. Last year we were harvesting fruit at this time.  As of September 12, are Brix readings are as follows:

WHITES

Siegerrebbe: 16 brix. Large cluster with large berries
Harvested Sept 19 at 17 brix

L'Acadia Blanc: 17 brix. Loose cluster and medium size berries
Sept. 29: 19.5 brix

Chardonnay: 11 brix. Medium size clusters and berries
Sept 29: 16.5 brix

Osceolo Muscat: 16 brix. Loose cluster, but large with medium berries
Sept. 29: 19 brix

Madeliene Angevine 16 brix. Medium to Large berries and large cluster
Harvested Sept 19 at 17 brix

Madeliene Sylvaner 15 brix. Large clusters and berries
Harvested Sept 19 at 17 brix

Epicure: 17 brix. Loose clusters with medium berries
Sept. 29: 18 brix

Petite Milo: 20 brix. Medium size clusters and berries.
Harvested Sept. 29 at 21 brix

Amiel: 17 brix - Large clusters and berries
Harvested Sept 19 at 17 brix

RED

48-05-83: 18 brix. Medium cluster and berries
Sept. 29: 18 brix

Labelle: 15 brix. Loose clusters, small berries
Sept. 29: 17.5 brix

Baco Noir: 17 brix. Medium cluster and berrie.
Sept. 29: 19 brix

Leon Millot: 20 brix. Medium bunches with medium berries
Sept. 29: 20 brix

Pinot Noir:16 brix. Loose medium size bunches with medium berries 
Sept. 29: 17.5 brix

While our numbers are down somewhat from 2017 at this time, the fruit all looks good and healthy. we have had another great year at controlling powdery mildew and keeping the birds and wasps at bay.  I will keep checking the Brix as September rolls along and will post a final blog comparing the 2017 numbers.

Happy crushing.

Update Sept. 29 2018

I have updated the final numbers for brix counts. I do not suspect things will get better this year. Numbers are a bit down from last year, but overall not terrible. Now it is just a matter of getting the fruit picked between the rain!

Summer 2018

Well it has been a bit of time since our Spring post and as we head into our final growing season, it has proved to be challenging.

We have been hit with another hot and dry summer so keeping on the watering has been key. Maybe not as bad as last year and none for the vines are under any visible stress and the fruit all looks nice and healthy, but still very dry. Lately the smoke from the BC forest fires have made the sun disappear. Aside from the poor air quality, making it difficult to be outdoors, the smoked out sun is going to delay our fruit ripening. We have all been busy pulling leaves and pruning trying to expose the fruit as much as possible to aid in the ripening process.

As of Aug 18 some of our vines are going through Veraison. The Leon Millot, LaBelle and 48-05-83 are all well into color change and are ready to net. A few of the whites are just starting to change - Siegerrebe and L'Acadia Blanc notably.

Bird netting on Leon Millot

Veraison on Leon Millot

Spring 2018

Here we are entering our final year of research and the vineyard is really shaping up with nice 5 year old vines. It has been a slow start to the year (in case you forgot, we still had snow on the ground  a few weeks back!) but that slow start has been off set by some unseasonably warm weather and we are actually right on par - or even slightly ahead- with 2017!

This year we said goodbye to Auxerrois, Zweigelt and Regent. Auxerrois was just too susceptible to mildew and never really produced the fruit we had hoped for.  Zweigelt and Regent, while healthy looking vines,  again it never generated into fruit production and were proving to be just too much work for so little joy.

As for the rest - as of May 14 this is where we stand:

Osceolo Muscat

Whites 

48-05-49 (Amiel) Epicure: were ranging from bud to bud swell.

Siegerrebe

Osceolo Muscat, Petite Milo, L'Acadia Blanc, Madeleine Sylvaner; Chardonnay,  Siegerrebe, Madeleine Angevine: All varieties had achieved bud burst and had shoots ranging from just burst to 1 cm.  





Reds:

 48-05-83, Pinot Noir:  these were at the early bud swell stage.  


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

Leon Millot

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,

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,

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,

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!