This is the time of year that we engage in purely routine regular tasks like mowing, removing suckers, spraying fungicide, and tying vines to the trellis. When we tie new vines, we are also tying them to the pencil rod so their trunks grow straight up. This
Read more →We will bottle one of our last batches of Red, White, & Blue® for the season and work on getting Cranberry ready to bottle. With the start of harvesting approaching in August, this is the time of year that we start planning the purchasing of yeast, yeast
Read more →Our vineyard team will be tying up new Brianna and St. Pepin vines at Maple Woods and the high wires at Newport Lane and Meadowcreek. They will be tying up several varieties at Tassel Ridge. Removal of suckers is essential to keep vines focused on producing grapes
Read more →Is there such a thing as Taco Thursday? If not, then there is now! Join us on Thursday night, July 11 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. for Taco Thursday! Begin with Chips and Salsa, then choose your favorite tacos and pair with your favorite Tassel Ridge®
Read more →We will be mowing and spraying as needed and we will install pencil rods and grow tubes on our new vines that are already planted as soon as the pencil rods arrive. We are getting our La Crescent blocks cleaned up. We had quite a bit of
Read more →We will be pruning St Croix, St. Pepin, Brianna, and Foch at Newport Lane Vineyard this week. 28,000 of our 38,000 vines have been pruned. We have delayed shipment of new vines from the nursery in Southeastern Vermont to allow our vineyards to dry out. We removed
Read more →We received juice to make American Steuben, Cranberry Wine, and American Pink Catawba on Monday and will start fermentations as soon as the juice temperatures get to about 60°F. Our titrator is all of a sudden not functioning, so we have to send all of our wine
Read more →All of our 38,500 vines have been long pruned (most of them mechanically) and now we have the Marquette, Brianna, and Edelweiss that need to be short pruned. As of last Friday, about 50% of the vines had started to leaf out although the cool, wet weather
Read more →The cold snap late last week illustrates the judgment required to know when and how much to prune grapes in Iowa. It is essential to prune grapes annually in the spring because without pruning, they would attempt to produce far more grapes than possible without damaging and
Read more →The colder weather has sent the vines into dormancy so we can now spray herbicide under the vines at Newport Lane. It also means we can spray herbicide to control broadleaved weeds in-between the vines at Newport Lane and Maple Woods. We will also be spraying pre-emergent herbicides at
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