Some of Our Ducks are Lining Up

Happy Easter!
After Jeff, Bill, Barry and my husband finished tiling the field, we paused and said, "Oh, what a beautiful field this is!" And then came the realization that we were going to have to find a way to plant 6804 grapevines that we had ordered from Mercier, CA. I proposed to my husband that we send out an SOS (Facebook, I was thinking) for 6804 people to come and join us in planting our vineyard. Wouldn't it be neat to have 6804 people, each with one vine, shovel in hand and at the signal, start digging and then plant the vine. I had visions of YouTube video going viral. One minute, nothing, the next minute an entire vineyard! My husband quickly brought me back to reality by asking me questions like, "How are 6804 people coming up to our land? Do you know how much one shovel costs, let's say it was $20.00, we would be spending $136,080.00 to plant the field." Okay, back to the drawing board.
We really had our hearts set on getting some one to laser plant our vines but because of the unusualness of the tall grafts, it wasn't something that is normally planted by vineyard managers, let alone people with laser-guided planters! We talked with Steve Mudd on Long Island and he said to have Mercier ship 6 plants and he'll try it with his device. Mercier sent the 6 vines to Steve and when Steve received them, he mentioned how healthy the roots were and how well the graft union looked. We were happy! Happier still, Steve mentioned that his planter could handle the tall grafts.
So, on Tuesday, March 26th, Steve was in our area and came to visit us on our land. Steve said the land looks good. It is a good thing to be on a hill because cold air is like water and runs to the lowest point.

Out on the West Coast, our vines have been crated and are awaiting the right moment to be shipped. Some of our ducks are lining up!

Wines & Vines: Vineyard Innovations

I read the March 2013, Wines & Vines and found some validation near the end of the article entitled Vineyard Innovations. My husband and I are going out on a limb (oh, bad pun) by planting a vineyard full of tall grafted vines that we had custom grafted at Mercier Vineyards, California. Cameron Hosmer and Ken Whitty of Benchmark Custom Vineyard Planting were interviewed for this article on their experiences with laser guided planters for mechanizing vineyard development. Using the laser guided system, Hosmer says that he can plant 5000 vines on a good day.
Jan Waltz whom we visited on the way to Wineries Unlimited, has contracted Hosmer's laser guided planting and confirms that "the resultant vineyard with its uniform spacing makes other mechanized work such as harvesting, spraying and pruning easier to do".
In the same article, John Duarte of Duarte Nursery is quoted as saying that one of the "coolest" new technologies is the Vibrosoiler that can prepare the vineyard by ripping the soil when it is moist to preserve the soil structure. John Duarte worked with John Crosslands of Vineyard Professional Services for a trial using the nursery’s UberVine (a 42-inch bench-grafted grapevine) with the Vibrosoiler’s plant-preparation system, which can rip and mound a row while also incorporating soil adjustments. Crossland confirmed that the UberVines demonstrated a “significant amount of growth” after being planted, and he believes they yielded up to a 3-ton crop during their second leaf.¹
While we are not looking to get a crop during our second leaf, it helps to know that there is some excitement out there about the uber/tall grafted vines being a vineyard innovation.
References:
1. Andrew Adams, Wines & Vines, Mechanizing Vineyard Development, March 2013.

2010 Paul Garaudet Cuvee Paul

This is a nicely crafted Pinot Noir from Monthelie made by Paul Garaudet. On their website, it mentions that Paul Garaudet is the 4th generation in his family to continue in the tradition of making wine. The harvesting is done by hand and they do not use any chemicals in the making of their wine.
We found the wine to have a clear ruby color in the glass. The nose was of black cherries and black raspberries. It's drinkable now but it had that complexity suggestive of it's ability to evolve into something more given time in the cellar. My husband is thinking that he needs to go on a roadtrip to get a few more bottles of this wine.

Influence of Vineyard Floor Management on Grape and Fruit Quality

Our goal when we grow grapes is not to use any pesticides or herbicides. We have been advised by friends who are already in the business that the weeds will get out of hand very quickly. Therefore, we have been researching steps we can take in order to tame the weeds. So, the question is, how to get our vineyard to work for us and not against us. In a previous blogpost, Influence of Cover Crops on Canopy Density showed the importance of under the trellis cover crops to manage vine vigor. There is a concept called vineyard floor management that when put into practice is very beneficial for the grapevines.
The principal goals of vineyard floor management include:¹

• Weed management
• Soil conservation and improvement
• Soil nutrient and water management
• Refuge for beneficial insects
• Diminished resource availability (i.e. nutrients, water) to control vine vigor

Cultivation versus herbicide application
The article compares the benefits of cultivation and herbicide application. The disadvantage of herbicide application includes the risk of developing herbicide resistant weeds, the risk of toxicity—both to the vines and operator—and the potential for herbicide residues leaching to waterways. This is balanced by the effectiveness, ease of use and low cost. The alternative to chemical herbicides is the use of organic herbicides such as clove oil, acetic and citric acid products, and corn gluten meal for the control of weeds.
Use of cover crops
This review also mentions that overall, cover crops are clearly considered a quality element in a vineyard, with benefits to the vine that include soil protection from erosion and crusting, vine growth regulation, improved soil fertility, structure, and water-holding capacity, increased soil biological diversity, weed suppression, habitat for beneficial predators, and provides a firm footing for cultural operations.
There is more information on various mulches as well as flame weeding. This is a review that I will be rereading once we get our vineyard established.
Reference:
1. Bibiana Guerra and Kerri Steenwerth, Influence of Floor Management Technique on Grapevine Growth, Disease Pressure, and Juice and Wine Composition: A Review, Am. J. Enol. Vitic., June 2012 63:149-164; doi:10.5344/ajev.2011.10001.