The red varieties were harvested on Halloween and are now fermenting in our winery space. We go there twice a day to do the daily punch downs. It's a good time to review what the 2024 season was like.
We had the third wettest January on record here in Connecticut. Typically, January and February is a time when we can exhale and catch up on the many things that we kicked down the road.
We began pruning duties in early March when the weather was amenable enough for us to go outdoors. Pruning begins with the removal of Agfast, the black ties that hold the shoots in place. There are literally thousands of Agfast in the vineyard. Next we cut the wire that holds the fruiting cane to the fruiting wire and then begin cutting the tops of the canes in preparation for selecting the two canes that will be laid down this year as the fruiting cane.
At the same time that the fruiting canes are selected and cut, they can be tied to the fruiting wire. The cut canes are neatly piled at each line post which makes it easier to remove from the vineyard with our expedition sled.
April brought the beginning of budbreak in the vineyard with the Chardonnay being the first to bud. This year, during March and April, we lowered the bird netting to the level of the irrigation hose and secured the netting with Velcro at each trellis wire. This was an immeasurable time saver as the canopy grew.
We had bud swell in all of our varieties at the end of April and the beginning of May. During May, we begin disbudding the excess buds that were on the fruiting cane and never quite made it through all the varieties before disbudding turned to shoot thinning.
In June, we shoot thinned our vines, going as fast as we could, but not fast enough before the shoots reached the top of the trellis wire and we knew that it was time to hedge. During summer, we had an abundance of rain as well as good weather, leading to the shoots reaching the top trellis wire in record time and becoming unmanageable.
July is frenetic: shoot tuck, hedge, mow, cut overhanging shoots, spray, rinse and repeat!
It seemed that we were going to escape the wet weather without the curse of downy mildew on our leaves, but the beginning of August brought the mildew, first to our Chardonnay and then to our red varieties to the east. West of the Chardonnay, the Auxerrois and the Chenin Blanc didn't seem to be that affected with downy and managed to keep their leaves to ripen the grapes. During the second week in August, we began unfurling our nets to protect the ripening grapes beginning in the Auxerrois and Chardonnay.
September brought more netting activities which was made very easy by the fact that since the netting was lowered to the level of the irrigation hose, we did not have the problem of removing the tendrils from the netting that we had before when we left the net in the developing canopy.
Our first harvest of Auxerrois and Chardonnay occurred on September 29. Our friends managed to harvest 13 rows of grapes by lunch time! We were able to take the harvest to Stonington Vineyards on Monday where Mike and his crew pressed the grapes for us. We did bring the pressed juice back to our Taugwonk facility where we racked the juice from the heavy lees and began fermentation.
Our next harvest was our Chenin Blanc which we split into two harvest dates, the first on October 20 and the second on October 27. Both harvests were done before 11! Once again, the grapes were taken to Stonington Vineyards, Mike and his crew helped with the pressing. We brought the juice back to Taugwonk where it was settled, racked and inoculated to begin fermentation. On Halloween, a few of our friends came to harvest 5 rows of red grapes which we brought back to Taugwonk on the same day and our friends foot stomped the grapes for us.
And now we are here! November!
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