. . . lazy. Yep, there is no other explanation for my lack of writing. Yes, I was on vacation at the beginning of July, my husband and I went to China for 10 days, amazing trip. But that does explain the end of June or why it's taken me two weeks to get in writing mode again since being home. Did I mention I'm lazy?
While I have been lazy, the vineyard has been progressing nicely and the crew, as always, is doing an excellent job making it look beautiful and keeping it healthy. Bloom started at the beginning of July, ahead of the last two years but still behind 2008 when we had bloom in mid June. The weather was reportedly good during bloom, I was gone for most of it, and we have a good fruit set. Some late blooming clusters, from that frost we had in May, will probably have to dropped because they will ripen to late but otherwise the fruit is starting off well. Now if we could just get our 80F, sunny days back. It's currently 62F and cloudy. Ugh.
The crew has started opening up the fruiting zone, exposing the clusters to more sunshine and to more air movement to minimize disease. Here in the Marechal Foch you can see the before and after effect.
In other happenings I'm still waiting on the Chardonnay to go through ML. I still haven't sent the wine to a lab to tell me if something is going on (being lazy?) but I'm hopeful that it is going through as the barrel room warms up a little. The paper chromotography and slight bubbling are trying to convince me. Mary is in Denver selling wine but she will be back in time for Cassio's concert on Saturday. If you are free, I highly recommend you make it out for this special concert.
More info on our website.
I'm putting in some pictures from our trip. We started in Hong Kong, then went to Suzhou, Ningbo, Ninghai, and lastly Bejing. We had the most time in Beijing, 4 days, and could have used even more. I'd like to go back to Suzhou and spend more time there. I was most struck by how the art, sculpture especially, is everywhere and how loud the people are. I think of Americans as being loud and certainly compared to Europeans and Eastern Europeans/Slavs we are but the Chinese have us beat hands down. At least on their own territory. I loved the mixture of architecture, traditional sweeping roofs next to modern cubes of steel and glass. The gardens were beautiful and laid out with care making them fun to walk through because you are never sure what's around the next corner. I also enjoyed all the sun parasols, some of which are works of art with lace, sequins and beads. White skin is highly prized and both men and women try to protect themselves. Food was excellent and people were friendly. All in all a good trip.
While I have been lazy, the vineyard has been progressing nicely and the crew, as always, is doing an excellent job making it look beautiful and keeping it healthy. Bloom started at the beginning of July, ahead of the last two years but still behind 2008 when we had bloom in mid June. The weather was reportedly good during bloom, I was gone for most of it, and we have a good fruit set. Some late blooming clusters, from that frost we had in May, will probably have to dropped because they will ripen to late but otherwise the fruit is starting off well. Now if we could just get our 80F, sunny days back. It's currently 62F and cloudy. Ugh.
