Installing Our Trellis System

On July 25th, we pounded in the last of our line posts and it felt to us as if we had pounded in the golden spike. Just as a reminder, here we were in November 25, 2013 with all of our trellis material in hand:

That photo is from a blogpost called More Things to Do: Trellis Installation.
One thing that we learned is that it takes a long time to install the trellising system. Another thing that we learned is our trellis system is especially critical because our tall grafted vines grow quickly and need support shortly after they are planted. This is the breakdown of what we did and how long it took us (us = two people, a tractor and a trailer). A generous loan of the post pounder and the auger from the Holmbergs, facilitated the installation of our black locusts endposts and the timely help of our friends all contributed to getting this job done.

Task	Time Elapsed	Actual Days worked
Line Post Installation (1332 line posts)	May 12, 2014 - June 25, 2015	May 2014: 12,13,14,17,18,19,20,22,23,25 June 2014: 2,3 August 2014: 4, 5, 9,10,11,12 September 2014: 29 October 2014: 3,5,6,10,12 (half way through) 13(17 more rows to go) 14,15,17,18,20,21 (10 more rows to go) June 2015: 10,11,12,16,17,18,22,24,25 finis!
Endposts (72 end posts)	November 2014	November 2014: 11,12,13,14,15,16,18(north end) 19,20,21,23,25,28,29(south end)
Earth anchors (72 earth anchors)	December 2014	December 2014: 14,15,16,17,18(south then north field),19,21

Work on our trellis continued in 2015 as we used the G-Pak to secure our endposts to our earth anchors. My husband was able to do this task in 2-3 days. Getting the appropriate spinning jenny makes Installing Our Fruiting Wire one of the simpler tasks in the trellis installation. So, on June 25th, we breathe a sigh of relief and celebrated by taking a selfie with the last line post, our version of the golden spike.

The Sight of One Flower Blooming

We went to the vineyard on Wednesday, June 17 and while checking up on our vines, we saw this one grape flower in bloom! It was on a Chardonnay plant. Excitedly, we checked our other plants, the Chenin Blanc and the Auxerrois, but it was only on this one Chardonnay that the flower had blossomed.
The grape flower in bloom is something of an anomaly because the grape flower bud is formed with a calyptra or cap which consists of the grape flower petals. The grape flower is a perfect flower, meaning that they have both the female (stigma) and male (stamen) parts and can self pollinate. This calyptra covers the reproductive organs of the grape flower. When the grape flower "blooms", the calyptra falls off. After seeing this one grape flower, I looked every day to see if our other grape flower buds were blooming.
When they pop, they pop at once. On Saturday, June 20, we saw nothing and then on Monday, June 22, many of the flowers were in bloom. All of our varieties, Auxerrois, Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay were in bloom, so I took photos and photos and photos and among the ones I took, I found the blossoms in various stages of shedding their calyptra.

Between Saturday when we saw no flowers in bloom and Monday, when we saw many flowers in bloom, there was a rain event in our area which brought us 3/4-inches of rain. Rain can have a detrimental effect on fruitset due to the following reasons:

• Temperature is an important factor in germination and growth of the pollen tube. Fruitset is greatly reduced when temperatures fall below 65^oF or exceed 100^oF
• Cold temperatures, rainfall or high humidity are often associated with incomplete detachment of the calyptras leading to reduced fruitset
• Rain can dilute the stigmatic fluid and interfere with germination of the pollen grains

We'll keep these things in mind as our season unfolds. So far, it has been an unusually cool summer.
References:
1. 1. Nick K. Dokoozlian, Grape Berry Growth and Development.

Installing Our Fruiting Wire

Our vines have been growing, growing, growing, so it was time to install our fruiting wire. With almost all of the lineposts in, we put the spinning jenny in the back of our trailer and secured one end of the wire on the endpost. My husband and I took turns driving the tractor as one of us strung the line along the linepost. It took us 2 days to string the fruiting wire on the lineposts. Now that we are down to the last few rows of line posts to pound, after we finish a row, we string the fruiting wire on the newly installed lineposts.

The plants, mainly Chenin Blanc that had a decent cane from the previous year, were already sending out healthy looking shoots. Many of the shoots have flower clusters and these are the plants that concerned us and motivated us to string our fruiting wire. Happy vine, puts us on cloud nine!

Summer Lane Installment 4: A Visit to Grgich Winery

Being Americans and looking for a touchstone of comparison for Croatian wines, where else would we go next, but to Grgic in Trstnik. Grgic was started in 1996 by the famous wine producer Croatian born and educated 'Mike' Grgich, who in 1977 founded Grgich Hills Estate in Rutherford CA. By starting the vineyard back in his home country, he set out to show the potential of Croatian wine and the winery makes two wines one each from autochthonous varieties, Plavac Mali and Pošip. The facilities are perched on a knoll at the mouth of the village bay and vineyards run up a steep hillside behind. The red wine is a 50/50 blend of grapes from these vines and vines in Dingač, the district known for its warmth and southern exposure just a little farther out on the peninsula. The Pošip grapes for the white wine come from the adjacent island of Korčula. The 2013 Pošip is a well integrated and balanced with grapefruit scents and flavors. Gladly, we sampled two bottles of the Plavac Mali—one that had been open since the previous night and one that had just been opened. If our testing was representative, aeration is strongly recommended to gain fuller more accessible flavors. The wine is a heavy red with lots of tannin, a nose of smoke, earth, leather, clove, dark chocolate and coffee and flavors of chocolate and dark fruits. Grgich Hills Estate imports the Plavac Mali and sells it at their tasting rooms in CA.