Our vineyard crew is moving right along with pruning. Having finished the Marquette, they’ll work on St. Croix and Frontenac at Meadowcreek and Newport Lane vineyards this week. We will also start applying the annual lime-sulfur spray to our grapevines this week. This is the same organic
Read more →With nine acres of Marquette in Meadowcreek West and South, we know that these vineyard blocks are going to take a lot of time to prune. But, we made really great progress last week. This week, we’ll be battling rain forecasts so we’ll have to see what
Read more →We will have our full, six-person vineyard crew all working on the vines by mid-week after they get some safety and pruning training. We will start by removing the cut canes from the Marquette. The actual cutting was done by the mechanical pruner 4–5 weeks ago. Because
Read more →Early every spring, when the vines are still dormant, we begin pruning at Tassel Ridge Winery. The ground may still be frozen, there may still be snow on the ground or the vineyards may be muddy, but as long as it isn’t snowing we start the pruning
Read more →Although we’ve already gotten a modest start with pruning, our 2020 pruning season starts for real on Monday, March 2. Our pruning team will consist of Adam, our vineyard manager, Denise, the assistant manager, and returning vineyard staff, Timmy and Gene. They will be helped by two
Read more →For a quick view of what is involved with mechanical pruning, check out this video taken in one of our vineyards.
Read more →They say that “necessity is the mother of invention!” We need to replace 200–300 Steuben vines that have died. This variety is pretty tender for Iowa’s winter climate anyway but we have some of our Steuben planted in a very wet area that we are having a
Read more →Weather permitting, we are installing pencil rods (steel rods about ¼ inch in diameter) in several rows of Marquette that we’ve cut off at the ground. We will train the suckers that come up when the ground warms up in the spring up along the pencil rods
Read more →Several batches of the very popular Red, White, & Blue have finished fermenting. We will rack the wine off yeast lees. This means that the wine will be pumped from one tank to another while leaving behind the sludge (dead yeast cells). We’ll then clean out the
Read more →Our vines are all dormant and are asleep for the winter. Some of our vineyard staff will take some time off and others will move indoors for the next two months. We are looking for a new source for rooted Steuben cuttings. Our former supplier lost their
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