Inspiration?

I've been waiting for inspiration to strike so I really have something to talk about.  To encourage that process I've been out taking pictures.  I still don't have anything I want to write about but I do have some great pictures so enjoy the show.

There have been several great walks in the vineyard.  I love watching all the new growth right now.  The young vines are starting to look like real plants and buds are popping out every where and getting ready to burst into bloom, well ahead of last year.  Let's hope we keep on this trend.

I caught three hatchings of garden spiders.  This one I actually had my camera near by to snap a few pictures.  The weather cooled off right after they hatched and it took about three days for them to all move off the loveseat.  Can you believe how many there are!? (Click on the picture for a larger image.)

It appears all of our grafts are taking.  I haven't found any with no growth.  I caught this one the other day, it's just over the moon, there are even two future pinot blanc clusters at the top of the shoot.  And in the right hand picture you can see the Marechal Foch trying to put out it's own leaves.  Those were promptly removed after snapping this picture.

Sebastian has been out spraying and mowing the vineyard while Rosario and Guadalupe have been suckering the vines, see below, and are about to start cleaning the heads.  You can also see some of the lingering frost damage where a second or third bud has not pushed out yet in the fourth picture.

We had our Memorial Weekend Celebration and released four new wines all sporting the new label design and two with wax dipped tops! I got to spend the day with the printers watching our new labels being run.  I love seeing a project come together as well as watch someone very good at his job turn out a beautiful product.

On the wine making side I attended a conference on pinot gris and have several new ideas floating around in my head for next year.  I also have been tasting through the barrels every two weeks and am happy with what I have, this picture was taken one of the times I took the wines home.  The wines smell different and my focus differs depending on where I am tasting.  I don't know yet if we will make a reserve wine this year but that's due to quantity not quality.  We only have 23 barrels of pinot noir and I think we will need that for the Willamette Valley Pinot noir but we shall see as the wine progresses.

On the home front I finished a stitching project that I plan to give to a friend after it comes back from the framers and my cats tried to build either a fort or a bunk bed I could quite decide but either way they were quite comfortable.  And while Ferb is pretending to look squished he sat there for a quite a while longer after I took the picture.  I think he was enjoying the warmth personally.

Not Entirely Unscathed.

Unfortunately we didn't make it through last week's frost entirely unscathed and while walking the vineyard I can certainly see where the fans and burn pile didn't quite reach.  It's interesting to note how more often than not it's the buds on the top of the cane which got burned while the underside ones are okay.

Ah well, though it puts me in mind of that well known quote "This was supposed to be 'The summer of George'! The summer of George."  Fingers crossed that the rest of our growing season is perfect and I'll still be happy come fall.  Though they are predicting low temperatures again tonight and Friday night.  Hopefully it will stay well above freezing.

On a more upbeat note I am off to Rose City Label tomorrow to be on the press run for our new labels.  Get your smart phones ready!

Look at this great shot from this morning.  The Foch is on the right, shoots are already 4-8" long and the empty trellises on the left are the new pinot blanc grafts and a few of them are starting to push buds.  We are going to have pinot blanc (imagine me wiggling in my seat).

Bottling and Grafting are Done!

Yes, it has been another 2 weeks since I wrote but we really were busy around here.  And to add to the mayhem the bottler didn't run like a perfect dream the whole time which I really needed it to because we were supposed to have 4 jam packed bottling days.  Instead we had 4 full days complete with plenty of stoppages, a few broken bottles and lots of brainstorming.  Then after grafting we had to take on one more day to finish the pinot gris and rosé. Throw in a little sunburn and a bad head cold and the hall bath that just won't finish and you have the last two weeks of my life.  And we are still working on those new labels, closer, closer . . . I must admit a little quiet time would be appreciated!

On a positive note we think we know what the problem with the bottler is and I spent this morning partially disassembling it to get to the part we want to get fixed.  Of course, along the way I had to fix and tighten everything else that I can now access.  Fingers crossed getting this one part straightened will solve all our problems.  You can stop laughing now and I only meant all our problems with the bottler.  Really, stop laughing.  Instead admire our beautiful rosé and dream about the beautiful summer weather coming perfect for enjoying it on the patio.

After bottling we all moved out to the vineyard and spent a whirlwind Monday and Tuesday last week grafting about two thirds of the the maréchal foch over to pinot blanc.  The advantage of grafting as opposed to replanting is that we will only lose one year of production.  The process was straightforward but multi stepped.  First we went through and cut off the upper part of the foch trunk, cleaned away all the brush and sawed a few cuts into the base of the trunk to bleed off the rising sap.  Then the grafting crew came through and did the delicate work of actually grafting two pinot blanc sticks onto a foch trunk and taping up the graft joints.  Next we went through again and hand painted every trunk, joint and fresh cut with grafting sealant, the black paint.  Just a note, there is no comfortable way of spending the day painting something two and half feet off the ground.  You either hunch over or get on your knees.  We did have beautiful weather to do it in, hence the sunburn, and it was neat to watch the process.

The crew has gone through and cut the trunks again to bleed the sap, apparently the rising sap can push the graft off the trunk and next we need to go through and repaint the sealant anywhere it may have cracked.  Keep your fingers crossed that every graft takes.  It won't happen but it doesn't hurt to wish.  I've included two videos of the grafting process, one is of the process on the trunk and the other of what happened to the pinot blanc stick.  The second video is short, the grafter is fast but what he is doing is shaving the stick, trimming the end and then adding a slice so the trunk and the stick slide together making several layers.

The bathroom is grouted and as of last night the toilet and sink are in, now to run some caulk, hang the mirror and cabinet and rehang the door and I think we will be done!  Yeah!