Vineyard Test

My husband and I are still shoot thinning. Yesterday, I came across this Chenin Blanc plant. Ha! I thought to myself, fool me will you? (Yoda like voice). See what I was seeing? Early in our viticultural life we became familiar with what our vines should look like, including what our rootstock should look like. This physical vine knowledge is called ampelography. You don't need to be an ampelographer to be able to tell what leaves should look like, you just have to be working in the vineyard for a few years to see this difference. Our first brush with rootstock came shortly after planting our vines in 2013 and I blogged about it in June 2013, titling the blog Ampelography 101: A Test in the Vineyard.
In 2018, we came across another vineyard test in our Auxerrois, a white variety which had a few Cabernet Sauvignon plants mixed in. To see what we were seeing, check out this blogpost: Ampelography: What Leaves Can Tell Us.
Today's test was our rootstock taking up a perfect position in the Chenin Blanc, hoping to camouflage itself among the Chenin Blanc shoots. I looked at our graft union and sure enough, this healthy looking 101-14 MGT was growing from below the graft union.

You can be sure that that rootstock had a short life. How it got to be that tall is a mystery!