From Our Vineyard

We are frequently asked why we don’t grow and produce wines from Cabernet, Chardonnay, Merlot and other Vinifera grape varieties. The short answer is that our winters are too cold and our growing season is too short for Vinifera. So, we grow Cold Climate Grapes. Our grape

Veraison is a major annual milestone in the grape ripening process. The most obvious manifestation of veraison is that the grapes themselves begin to change color. Purple grapes change from a milky-green to purple whereas white grapes change from a milky-green to an amber-green with a measure

Marquette has started veraison where the grapes start changing from a milky-green color to purple, as in the case of Marquette. The grapes also get softer and the juice inside the grapes becomes less acidic and sweeter, especially as harvest approaches. We are about ten days later

Two years ago, we noticed that one block of Edelweiss had trunks that didn’t look very good. We had a lot of bull canes (vigorous, wild, fruitless canes) and vines were missing a left or right top arm in many cases. We decided to cut the vines

In spite of the fact that it has been dry for about three weeks now, the grass strip between the rows of grapes keeps growing so we have to continue mowing. It just takes lots of time when you have 75 acres and about 38,000 grape vines.

Without some human intervention, vines will grow anywhere they can and usually that means on the ground. During the first two years after planting, we work to make sure they grow up onto the trellis and develop straight trunks. In the second year, we make sure that

With young vines, we work to make sure that they have straight trunks and that the cordons are tied to the top wire in both directions from the trunk. This week, we worked on Itasca and Verona at Tassel Ridge and Steuben at Meadowcreek. Mature vines like

We will start this week by removing suckers that appear annually at the base of healthy vines. Sometimes suckers emerge right at the soil line and other times, they grow from the trunk below the soil line. In either situation, they are quite brittle and break off

Most of our Marquette and all of the La Crescent are trellised on a VSP or vertical shoot positioning trellis system. The objective of this system is to assure that the fruit and most of the leaves are exposed to morning sun on the east side of

Our grapevines are in bloom. Compared to daffodils or tulips, their blooms are very unimpressive as the attached photo shows. First of all, each flower is very small and second, it is only at the pollinating stage for 2–3 days. You have to look quick. Initially, each