Grape Flea Beetle Infestation

We do see grape flea beetles in our vineyard at the start of budbreak but this year seems to be quite the infestation. We have not seen this since we first planted our vineyard in 2013. At that time I captured the best picture of the flea beetle with my film camera. You can check out this blogpost: Grape Flea Beetle.
In that blogpost I showed the damage that the grape flea beetle can do to leaves. It is the larval form that does the most damage. Typically the grape flea beetle can be found on grapevines closest to the edge of the vineyard, but this year, we are seeing the beetle in the entire vineyard. Here is the activity that they are engaged in:

A lot of the beetles are mating and boring holes into the buds to lay their eggs. We have been squashing the beetles when we see them but other then that, we are not using chemical means to get rid of the beetles. We will monitor our vineyard to see if they are causing any real damage.

Annual Cycle of Growth

This is the time of the year that I start filling out the chart for the annual cycle of growth. Although on the chart there is a specific day for the milestones that we track including budbreak, bloom, veraison and harvest, the date can have a range. We began tracking our annual cycle of growth in the vineyard beginning 2015 when we had our first small harvest of Chenin Blanc.
This is what the annual cycle of growth chart looks like:

I took pictures of all of the varieties on May 4th and what stage of development they were in at that time. Due to the cold weather than we are having, the Cabernet Sauvignon is not yet in bud break. This is what is defined as budbreak:¹

The Chenin Blanc appears to be the furthest along followed by the Barbera, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc and Auxerrois.
I copied the Annual Cycle of Growth chart from Ed Hellman's excellent online document on Grapevine Structure and Function. It is 19 pages long and crammed with good information about grapevines.
References:
1. Ed Hellman, Grapevine Structure and Function.

Vintage 2026: May Buds Status

Our weather this spring has been one of highs and lows. After the cold snap on April 20 and 21, we have been having weather that is on the cooler side. I've taken pictures of all of our grape varieties, once on April 21 and then again yesterday, May 4. The change in the bud status is negligible, reflecting the cool temperatures that we have been having.

Variety	April 21	May 4
Auxerrois
Chenin Blanc
Chardonnay
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Franc
Barbera

I'll update the progress of the buds in future blogs.

Chenin Blanc Pairing

It's no secret that we love Chenin Blanc. It's difficult to pinpoint when we began this love affair with Chenin Blanc but Domaine Huet definitely plays a large part as well as Ken Forrester's Petit Chenin. I've blogged about it before: Ken Forrester's 2009 Petit Chenin and 2010 Domaine Huet Le Mont.
Chenin Blanc pairs so perfectly with fresh oysters and seafood and seafood is what naturally comes to mind when pairing white wines.
Recently, however, we had leftover pork ribs with a dry rub and two bottles of Chenin Blanc. One was our 2019 Chenin Blanc and the other was a 2010 Domaine Huet Le Mont. Since we enjoy food and wine pairings, we thought why not try it with the two Chenins. To our surprise, the wines went very well with the dry rub pork ribs. Our assessment to this pairing was that our Chenin has a good bit of acidity that cut through the pork ribs and made it an unlikely but delicious pairing!

Coincidentally, one of our customers who came back to bring her sister and purchase more wines, recounted that she and her husband paired our 2019 Chenin Blanc with dry rub pork ribs! She mentioned that although her husband is not a wine drinker, he enjoyed the Chenin with the ribs that he prepared!