From Our Vineyard

This year has been unlike any previous year in that grapes were slow to develop and then very slow to increase sugar content. We are testing daily and are ready to harvest but the grapes are not ready. Normally, we would have started with Brianna by August

We raised the grow tubes on the young vines we planted in June. This is the third time we have done that and it is to protect the tender apical shoots from deer predation. The deer think these shoots are the best salad they can think of!

In the past week, we mowed both the Tassel Ridge® and Meadowcreek Vineyards and because of the rain, they really needed to be mowed. We also got ready for more rain by pumping the lagoons. We continued tying up the vines, straightened pencil rods, and secured them

Last week, the vineyard team worked on tying up vines and removing suckers. Suckers are vine shoots that come up annually from the roots. They also completed repairs on broken posts and on mowing between the rows at the Maple Woods Vineyard. This week, we sprayed for

We removed suckers and tied up the LaCrosse vines at Maple Woods Vineyard. Rain helps the vines grow but the weeds seem to grow faster so we weed-whacked the newly planted vines at Meadowcreek Vineyard. These new vines are growing so fast that they were actually growing

Rain is very important at this time of year as the grapes are just beginning their race to maturity. But, it prevents mowing, tree removal, and even spraying of fungicides, insecticides, and nutrients. So, we’ll be happy to get some dry weather that will permit us to

Rain makes spraying and moving any heavy equipment in the vineyards difficult if not impossible. So, we have been limited in what we can do. We have focused on tasks that involve people on foot in the vineyards removing suckers and tying up the Crimson Pearl at

Last week, everyone was employed planting our new Foch and L’Acadie Blanc grapevines. That included installing pencil rods and grow tubes. Then we went to work removing suckers that come up from the vine roots each year and tying the vines up to the trellis where necessary.

Each year at this time, we normally take petiole samples from each grape variety in each vineyard and we send them to a lab for analysis. What is a petiole? The petiole is the stem of a grape leaf. We will collect 50–100 petioles from each grape

While the big news is our planting of new vines, we are also making progress on a number of fronts. We got Newport Lane and the Sabrevois at Maple Woods sprayed, the LaCrosse at Meadowcreek were suckered and tied up, and trees removed from the A, B,