2022 Vineyard Planting and Plant Count Update

We have been in the process of replanting our vineyard since 2016, after having lost 90% of our newly planted vines in 2014. This is what our vineyard looks like now in chart form showing the varieties that we are currently growing and when they were planted. We are pretty much back to where we started in 2013 with the number of vines planted but we do have a few gaps.

Those few gaps is what is causing a bit of a hiccup. Last year, we were supposed to get green grafts to put in our vineyard but that didn't work out so this year, we are trying to of figure out how we can source a small amount of custom grafted vines for the replanting that we must do.
So, on Thursday, February 3, we paid a visit to Rob Russell of Westport Rivers Vineyard and Winery. We initially visited Rob in May, 2011 when we were contemplating growing tall grafted vines in our vineyard. Rob's vineyard was grown with tall grafted vines and at that time, he was already making his own grafted vines.
On this visit, Rob showed us how he made his grafted vines and showed us his callousing chamber which is maintained at 80 degrees F and high humidity. After callousing for approximately 25 days, the vines are planted outdoors to spend a year in the vineyard. In the fall, the vines are removed and put in dormancy for the following planting season. Rob mentioned that he tried green grafting and the number of survivors of the green grafts were very poor in comparison to creating grafts in the standard way. We have also observed that the survival rate of the green grafted Auxerrois that we planted in 2020 was between 40-50%.
The discussion we had with Rob was a very informative and optimistic one and we left with the idea that in the future, we will learn how to make our tall grafted vines under Rob's guidance.
In addition to the time that Rob spent showing us how he and his crew made their grafted vines, Rob generously sent us off with 4 of the wines that they make. I will be blogging about them in future blogposts.