Checking the brix

Veraison

A few days before August 2nd Doc noticed the Veraison time was upon us. It was more apparent in the Sumerset seedless grapes. They are the only eating grape that we have planted . But we are also starting to see veraison on the wine grapes as well. Veraison is the time when the grapes are starting to turn from green to Red or in this case to a Salmon color. He has also been busy with the necessary hook-ups to be made for the newly purchase of a the bladder press and crusher/destemmer.

Hedging

Last weekend we hedged the grape vines . What that consist of is opening up the canopy so that the grapes ripen. We had talked to other vineyard owners who said that they used a gas hedging tool to establish this. The thought of that made us kind of nervous. I am sure with more experience and of course trial and error, we will get better at that. So we just used our pruners and cut off the long hanging down vines and opened the canopy so the cluster could soak up the sun.

Going forward

This weekend Terry and I cleared some trees so we can have room for a pole shed to house our equipment. Terry of course operated the chain saw with ease of a twenty year old. I filled the wagon with the tree limbs and piled wood for a fire this fall. I am looking forward to sitting around a fire, sipping a glass of wine. We had debated the placement of this building for a couple months. Finally we decided on the flattest land that we have next to the lower vineyard. While cleaning up the debris I could not help but feel a little sad for view that was changing. I know it was just a rickety gate, but still. I had mentioned my feeling to Terry and he reminded me this was just the view from the driveway. I would get over it. So we go forward. Soon the the building will be up. It will be nice to have room for the sprayers, carts, wagon, tillers, weedwackers, and eventually a tractor. So here is the photo from last fall of the view from the driveway. Goodbye old gate!

How much is out there?

How cool is it watching our grapes growing bigger every day! Terry has been right on with the spraying schedule. This morning he spray for the second time, for the dreaded phylloxera. A disease that almost wiped out all the grapes in Europe in the 1800's. But the grapes we grow are reasonably resistant to that disease. But is still needs to be monitored. We are now starting to concentrate on making a list of the equipment we will need to start the wine making process. But how much equipment, for how much wine? First we will try to estimate out how many bottles of wine are in the upper field. Here is a rough average to work with. One pound of grapes equals 4.5 clusters. One cluster equals 40 to 60 grapes. One bottle equals 2.75 pounds of grapes, or 11 clusters or 440-660 grapes. From what we are reading, most vineyards get between 2 to 3.5 tons per acre. But not this vineyard, this year. We have just left a small amount of grapes just to play with the wine making process. This evening we will go out and take a rough count of our clusters.

4th of July 2009

Due to numerous request's I have decided to do some updating to our blog. The 4th of July is here, we are now marveling at the new look of the July vineyard. It has been a long spring of spraying, weeding, spraying, tappening, and did I mention weeding. This weekend both vineyards looked presentable. We gave several tours to family and friends that we do not see enough of, and that we had the pleasure of their company. This photo is what the tiny Frontenac Gris look like. I will try to post photos going forward watching them grow.