From Our Vineyard

Young vines all need attention at this time of year. Second year vines should have cordons growing in both directions from the trunk and they need to be tied to the top wire. This is done with a biodegradable jute twine which is excellent from an environmental

We hedged vines on VSP trellises this week in order to assure that the grapes on these vines were exposed to light. Light exposure helps to lower acid and it improves flavors. We have 17 acres of Edelweiss and these vines have not received much attention for

An important task in the vineyards in early June is to tuck all of the canes on our vines on vertical shoot positioning (VSP) trellises between the cage wires. While the canes are short and very pliable, this is time-consuming but easy. If we wait too long,

Last week, we planted several hundred new LaCrosse vines at Maple Woods and this week, we planted a test plot of 60 Clarion vines at Meadowcreek East. We use the LaCrosse to make a varietal wine and also as a blending component in three wines. The Clarion

This week, we finished pruning Itasca, Verona, and Petite Pearl at Tassel Ridge vineyard. We also tied up the year-old LaCrosse at Maple Woods. We started spraying fungicide and mowed everywhere we could. The vineyard team will start planting new vines next week. They will include 66

This week, we finished the pruning and tying up of Foch and LaCrosse at Newport Lane and Itasca, Verona, and Crimson Pearl at Tassel Ridge Vineyard. We took advantage of still air to spray fungicide and we used our weed badger to clean weeds out of a

We have had nice weather during the daytime hours so we’ve really made great progress with pruning. Itasca and Verona are new varieties that may not be familiar to you. Itasca makes a white wine. It is a grape variety that was developed at the University of

We have taken advantage of the nice weather and have continued to prune Edelweiss. We are making great progress. The recent cold snaps got our attention. With sap moving up the vines, buds are starting to swell but we think they were still hard enough and temperatures

Last week, we finished hand pruning the Sabrevois, and also the St. Pepin and Brianna, all at Maple Woods. We mechanically pruned Edelweiss with our V-Mech at Tassel Ridge this week and switched to follow-up hand pruning Edelweiss by mid-week. With 17 acres of Edelweiss, this project