The first order of business this week involves removing the Edelweiss trunks in four rows at Tassel Ridge. These vines were originally planted in about 2007 and now are missing arms, are really mis-shapen, are dead, or have what appears to be diseased trunks. We are starting with the 250 vines in four rows in the A Block just east of the Winery parking lot at Tassel Ridge. The vines that are alive have well established trunk systems and they will respond immediately by producing suckers that we will train up along a new pencil rod to the top wire. We will replace the dead vines with new vines that we will plant next spring. Next year, we will remove at least four more rows and will continue until we have replaced all of our Edelweiss vines.
In most of our vineyards, we’ll be removing suckers, tying up vines, and mowing. We will be applying fungicide in two of our vineyards and Roundup under our Steuben vines at Meadowcreek.
Over the past two weeks, we’ve been hedging some of our very vigorous Marquette at Meadowcreek and then using our Collard Leaf Removal system to further open up the Marquette canopy. This will promote air transfer through the canopy and reduce the amount of fungus we have growing on these vines. We are also expecting that sun exposure to the grapes in both the morning and afternoon will help to reduce the acid in the juice and improve the phenolic character of the juice. Of course, our end objective is to make better dry red wine. (See the before and after photos).