Shoot and Inflorescence Development--Part 3

I started keeping a better photographic record of the Eichhorn-Lorenz Shoot and Inflorescence Development which is the first main stage taking the vine from bud break to stage 16. The first of these posts was on May 14, Modified Eicchorn-Lorenz: Shoot and Inflorescence Development when our varieties were between stage 4 and 9.
The next update a week later on Saturday, May 22, I posted Shoot and Inflorescence Development--Part 2, with photos taken on May 21, showed that the vines were between stages 9-15, with the Barbera leading the way.

To keep up with the consistency, yesterday, May 28, I took photos of the vines and this is what they look like now:

Variety	Photo
Auxerrois
Chenin Blanc
Chardonnay
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Franc
Barbera

At this time, the Auxerrois, Chardonnay and Barbera are the leaders of the pack and the Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc are a bit behind. The contrast between the photos taken on May 21 and yesterday, May 28 shows that the vines are growing rapidly. We began disbudding on May 12 and finished on May 24. We are making another pass through the vineyard, our current canopy management is shoot thinning.
Last night, we had the first big rainfall since May 10th. The rain is much welcomed and should help with the shoot elongation stage that the vines are in now. But, that also means that we need to get moving on the shoot thinning!
References:
1. Fritz Westover, Grapevine Phenology Revisited, Wines&Vines, March 2018.

Tasting Fees

It rained overnight and it is wet outside which means that instead of hurrying off to the vineyard, we can relax over our morning coffee so, the conversation at the table is about tasting fees. What spurred this discussion was an article my husband was reading from Wine-Searcher called Tasting Fees Skyrocket in Wine Country, and is condensed from Silicon Valley Bank's 2021 Direct-to-Consumer Wine Survey Report. What is interesting is that this report is based on 460 U.S. wineries who were self reporting their information.

• 69% of the respondants were from California and only 7.6% were outside of the West Coast
• The standard tasting fee in the U.S. is $25
• The average in Napa County is $58 and the average in Sonoma County is $30; if doing a "reserve" tasting the fees can run from an average of $90 in Napa and $50 in Sonoma
• Washington State is the bargain region for tasting high quality wines averaging $15 for a tasting
• More than 40 percent of wineries expect to hold tastings by-appointment only this year

The move to tastings by-appointment only was the result of Covid-19 restrictions. But when the wineries are fully open once again, the majority will retain a by-appointment option or remain fully by-appointment.
This works for us since our personnel consists of my husband and myself, we had long ago decided that when it came to wine tastings, we would be following the by-appointment only model.

View from the North End of the Vineyard

My husband and I were just sitting down at the north end of our vineyard on our picnic table during one of our breaks and I showed him a photo of the vineyard taken on May 6, 2021. What the photo shows are the Auxerrois grape vines that are located on the west side of the vineyard.
We decided to take a similar photo from around the same spot and this is what the photo looks like:

The top photo shows what this end of the vineyard looked like on May 6 and the bottom photo shows what the vineyard looked like yesterday, on May 23, just 17 days later.
I hope to keep taking photos from the same area as the season progresses to show the changes occuring in the vineyard.

Shoot and Inflorescence Development--Part 2

On May 14, I wrote a blogpost called Modified Eicchorn-Lorenz: Shoot and Inflorescence Development focussing on the first stage of grape vine growth.

At that time, the vines were at the EL 4 to EL 9 stage.

Yesterday, a week later, on May 21, this is what the vines look like:

The above photo shows that the varieties are at this stage:

• Auxerrois: E-L Stage 12--5 leaves separated shoots about 10 cm long; inflorescence clear
• Chenin Blanc: E-L Stage 11--4 leaves separated
• Chardonnay: E-L Stage 12--5 leaves separated shoots about 10 cm long; inflorescence clear
• Cabernet Sauvignon: E-L Stage 9--2 to 3 leaves separated shoots 2-4 cm long
• Cabernet Franc: E-L Stage 11--4 leaves separated
• Barbera: E-L Stage 15--8 leaves separated, shoot elongating rapidly single flowers in compact group

At this point, surprisingly, the Barbera has far surpassed the other varieties in growth stage, the Auxerrois has caught up with the Chardonnay and the Cabernet Sauvignon is still the laggard in this group.
References:
1. Fritz Westover, Grapevine Phenology Revisited, Wines&Vines, March 2018.

Wine Grape Growing in Cool Climate Regions

I am currently reading a article written by researchers in Poland which makes some important points regarding wine grape growing in cool climates.
Climate is undoubtedly one of the most important elements influencing the results of grape cultivation. The quality and type of wine produced is one of the challenges of growing grapes in a cool climate region. A cool climate refers to regions where the mean temperature of the month preceding the grape harvest is 15 °C (60 °F) or less.
Some of the challenges of growing grapes in a cool climate include:

• A decrease in temperature below minimum requirements causes the grapes to ripen incompletely
• Yields per hectare are lower, so the production costs of wine become higher
• Chemical composition of grapes is different; the fruit has a lower content of sugars, and in colder seasons its acidity may be too high
• Cool climate regions are characterised by late and often insufficient fruit ripening
• Acidity is increased
• The pH of must obtained may also be lower than usual due to the higher content of malic acid and tartaric acid
• Too low a temperature or frequent rainfall in the period of the planned grape harvest can delay the start of fermentation
• The most frequent procedure repeatedly necessary in the case of wine production in the cool climate regions is chaptalisation, i.e., adding sugar to the must before fermentation to obtain a normal content of alcohol in the product
• After alcoholic fermentation very often malolactic fermentation is carried out due to its positive influence on reducing acidity

A few positive reasons for growing wine grapes in a cool climate:

• Cool-climate wines are usually perceived as more delicate and refined, and the higher acidity gives freshness to the wines
• A characteristic feature of the cool climate regions is also the achievement of better quality of white wines than red wines

References:
1. Tomasz Tarko, Aleksandra Duda-Chodak, Paweł Satora, Paweł Sroka, Iga Gojniczek, Chemical composition of cool-climate grapes and enological parameters of cool-climate wines, Fruits, 2014, vol. 69, p. 75–86.

Vintage 2021: May Vineyard Tasks

On April 28, I wrote a blogpost called Cuttings Are a Fact of Vineyard Pruning and on May 13, we finally finished picking up all of the cuttings from the vineyard alleys just as the weeds and the grass were beginning to grow into the cuttings serving as an effective camoflage. We took a moment to breathe a sigh of relief and moved on to other tasks.
We were trimming the ends of the canes that we had laid down as well as the kicker canes so the next things to do was mowing and weed wacking. Here is a photo of what my husband has been doing:

I have been disbudding. The goal of disbudding is to attempt to make the shoot growth as synchronous as possible and to give each developing shoot enough space for airflow, part of early canopy management.

Meanwhile, we take time to see all the birds that have made their return to the vineyard. My husband saw an Oriole nest but so far he hasn't been able to take a decent photo. Our hunter on the other hand has visitors parading in front of his camera. His trail camera took this photo of a mother and her newborn fawn on May 15 and on May 17th the same mother and fawn posed for a daytime photo.

Modified Eicchorn-Lorenz: Shoot and Inflorescence Development

The first stage in the Modified Eicchorn-Lorenz Phenology is shoot and inflorescence development.

These are the tasks associated with this phenological stage:

Phenological Stage	Vineyard Tasks
Shoot and Inflorescence Development	Begin a protective fungicide program when shoots are just 2 inches long Unwanted “sucker” shoots can easily be removed from trunks and non-count shoots from cordons or fruiting canes

Here is what our various grape varieties look like now:

The above photo shows that the varieties are at this stage:

• Auxerrois: E-L Stage 4-7 Past stage 4 but before stage 7
• Chenin Blanc: E-L Stage 7 First leaves separated from shoot tip
• Chardonnay: E-L Stage 9 Two or three leaves separated; shoots 2-4 cm long
• Cabernet Sauvignon: E-L Stage 4 Bud burst leaf tips visible
• Cabernet Franc: E-L Stage 7 First leaves separated from shoot tip
• Barbera: E-L Stage 9 Two or three leaves separated; shoots 2-4 cm long

The photo is representative of what 50% or more of the variety looks like to determine what stage they are at. The vineyard is at various stages of budbreak at this point with the Cabernet Sauvignon lagging behind.
Yesterday, we finally finished picking up all of the cuttings from our vineyard alleys. Concurrently, we have been trimming the ends of the canes that we have laid down and cut the kicker canes. We also began mowing the vineyard alleys.
We have more than a week of beautiful weather coming up so it will be interesting to see how the vines grow in that time.
References:
1. Fritz Westover, Grapevine Phenology Revisited, Wines&Vines, March 2018.

Modified Eicchorn-Lorenz

One of the early blogposts on this blog was called Eichhorn-Lorenz Grapevine Phenology. In 2018, I wrote a blogpost called Modified Eichhorn-Lorenz Grape Vine Phenology where I define what "phenology" is and also have a chart of the various phenological stages and the vineyard task that should be performed during that stage.
The modified Eicchorn-Lorenz chart can be found in an article in Wines&Vines called Grapevine Phenology Revisited.¹

In addition to tracking our Annual Cycle of Growth, knowing the grape vine phenology in more detail can be even more helpful. So, this year, I decided to breakdown the Modified Eicchorn-Lorenz chart into these major categories listed on the right hand side of the above illustration:

• Shoot and inflorescence development
• Flowering
• Berry formation
• Berry ripening
• Senescence

My hope is to take photos of the various stages and report back on this blog. Stay tuned.
References:
1. Fritz Westover, Grapevine Phenology Revisited, Wines&Vines, March 2018.

Vintage 2021: Annual Cycle of Growth

We have been keeping information regarding our annual cycle of growth since 2015. In that year and in 2016, we only harvested Chenin Blanc but since 2017 we have seen our other varieties come to fruition at harvest until last year when we had our first crop of Barbera.
Here is a tabular recap of our annual cycle of growth 2015-2020:

Keeping track of the annual cycle of growth shows us trend lines and helps us to anticipate when certain major events in the life of a grape vine is likely to occur. It tells us that the Chardonnay and the Barbera are the first to bud break and the Cabernet Sauvignon is the last. More data points will help us in the future.
This year's annual cycle of growth for bud break looks like this:

We will to keep recording the various events for 2021 on our chart and post an updated blog at the end of the yar.

Wall of Fame

We have been collecting the empty bottles of wine that we've drunk over the years. Whenever a wine has either meant something very special to us or a wine has impressed us with it's flavor we put it above our kitchen cabinets.

During the winter, when I was on a mission to clean our house from top to bottom, I took down all of these bottles of wine, wiped down the years of dust accumulation and took a picture of the label.
I did this with a purpose in mind. A while back, I saw on the news that a jpg sold for $69 million created by Mike Winkelmann — the digital artist known as Beeple! What is amazing about that? A jpg is a popular file format used for images and graphics—especially on the internet, created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), so Beeple was selling digital art! Beeple's jpg was in a form called the non-fungible tokens (NFT), which are unique files that live on a blockchain and are able to verify ownership of a work of digital art. Beeple's NFT was called "Everydays - The First 5000 Days".
So, I thought I would try my hand at creating a jpg of our Wall of Fame:

My digital art is not an NFT, but if you would like to offer me $69 million or even slightly less, I might entertain your offer!

Leaf Area/Crop Weight Ratios of Grapevines

Recently, I was refreshing myself on leaf area/crop weight ratios in grapevines by re-reading a 2005 research article written by W. Mark Kliewer and Nick K. Dokoozlian.¹ Somewhere in the recess of my mind was a vague recollection that it took 15 leaves to ripen a bunch of grapes. Is that really true?
In this study, Kliewer and Dokoozlian reviewed the various definitions of vine balance:

• Winkler and Williams defined a grapevine as being well balanced and not overcropped when the vine brings its fruit from flowering to a given degree Brix, depending on the use to which the fruit will be used, with a given summation of degree days of heat, which is constant for a given variety
• Shaulis defined vine balance as dormant vine pruning weights, expressed as kg per meter of canopy length with neither too little nor too much growth with values of 0.3 to 0.6 kg pruning weight per meter of canopy length generally considered to be in the optimal range
• Another vine balance measure is crop load or the ratio between crop yield and dormant vine pruning weight vines with crop load values between 5 to 10 are considered in the optimal range.

Smart and Robinson devised an 80-point scoring system to evaluate vineyard balance and potential fruit quality assurance through the use of point quadrant analyses of canopy density and microclimate.
The Smart and Robinson 80-point scoring system took into account:

• leaf layer number
• percent canopy gaps
• percentage interior and exterior leaves and clusters

And five other measures related to the physiological status of grapevines:

• leaf size
• leaf color
• shoot length
• lateral growth
• presence of active shoot tips during the ripening period

These latter five characteristics are assessed by visual observation and require some advanced experience of what is desirable. Each of the eight characteristics is assigned zero to 10 points (maximum). Open-type canopies that have moderate shoot vigor and minimal amounts of lateral shoot growth are rated highest.
The Kliewer and Dokoozlian study defined the optimum level of cropping in terms of leaf area required per unit weight of fruit, expressed as m²/kg, to produce berries of maximum total soluble solids, skin color, and total sugar accumulation in fruits.
The optimal leaf area/crop weight ratio of single- and divided-canopy training systems were compared from field experiments of several cultivars including Thompson Seedless, Tokay, Chenin blanc, and Cabernet Sauvignon located at Davis or Oakville, California.
The caveat was that since temperature and light for maximum photosynthesis are frequently more limiting in cool-climate regions, it is likely that the leaf area/fruit weight ratios for optimal fruit composition and wine quality will be somewhat higher in cool-climate regions.
Since we are growing Cabernet Sauvignon and Chenin Blanc, my attention was focussed only on those two varieties.
For Cabernet Sauvignon, the published values of crop weight/pruning weight ratios within the range of 5 to 10 as indicative of vines well balanced (not over or undercropped), then the corresponding leaf area/crop weight ratios fall between 0.8 to 1.2 m² leaf area per kg fruit and agree very closely with the fruit total soluble solids leaf area/crop weight relationship.
For Chenin Blanc, the authors found that the number of primary leaves required per cluster to ripen fruit to 22 Brix for V-, lyre-, and GDC-trellised vines was 12 to 13, 10 to 11, and 10 to 11, respectively.
So my guess of 15 leaves to ripen a cluster was pretty close.
References:
1. W. Mark Kliewer and Nick K. Dokoozlian, Leaf Area/Crop Weight Ratios of Grapevines: Influence on Fruit Composition and Wine Quality, Am. J. Enol. Vitic., 56:2 (2005). Proceedings of the ASEV 50th Anniversary Annual Meeting.

Vintage 2021: Budbreak in the Vineyard

We have been pruning our vines and laying down the canes every chance we have in order to beat budbreak. On my April 21 blogpost I wrote about Vintage 2021: April Update and in it provided photos of the various varieties that we have in the vineyard. They were very much at the dormant bud stage. Now, thirteen days later, here is what they look like:

The Chardonnay and the Barbera are at the bud opening stage and all but the Cabernet Sauvignon are at the green tip stage. The Cabernet Sauvignon is late to bud break and is currently at the wooly bud stage.
Given that the vines are beginning to wake up, we were so happy that we laid down the last pruned cane this afternoon! Oh, what a relief it is!