Harvest is here ....

This year the grapes are again coming in similar to the last 3 years ... Brix was a bit low at 19 and TA was about normal for this part of Nebraska at 13 g/l (1.3%) but pH was already up to 3.4 so I harvested. And they taste great!

We harvested half last Friday then rested up for a few days then picked the rest on Monday. Picking Marquette grapes is much more labor intensive than most other varieties due to their small size clusters. Marquettes are about 4 ounces rather than many other varieties weighting a full pound or more. Seems the picking is 4 times as much work to get the same number of pounds!! No wonder we were so tired after harvesting only half the grapes!

Here's some pictures we took ....

Grapes looking good !

Grapes are looking good so far. Leaves show no signs of PM, DM, or black rot.

Harvest should be in 3 weeks or so. It seems that we may be behind by a week or two this year.

I'm now modifying my press to accomodate the newly acquired larger pressing basket that I obtained while visiting my son on the east coast last year. I'll post pics when I'm done.

Also need to wash the crusher/destemmer and get it ready for later this month.

So far I've been able to keep the birds out of the nets. I did a much better job of "clipping" the nets this year especially aroung the posts and trunks. Losses from birds eating the grapes "through" the netting is still minimal. And, the electric fence is keeping out the raccoons so far.

It won't be long now......

Veraison !!

In spite of a late spring freeze and a lot of rain and cool weather, my vines are looking good and full of clusters. I'm now more convinced that I should convert to cane pruning in the future as apposed to the cordon/spur that I used in previous years. I've also been reading a lot of good comments about going to not only cane pruning but to closer vine spacing. I will try the closer vine spacing on a couple of new rows and see how it does.

We are now finally getting some hot weather ... actually VERY HOT weather. This seems to be catching up the grapes from the slow growth experienced during the wet and cooler weather thus far.


Veraison is here !!! Right on schedule. In another week or so it will be time to add the netting and the electric fencing. Hope I can keep those pesty animals from eating too many grapes this year.

Harvest will probably be late August again this year if weather continues to be "normal". Looks like this could be my best harvest yet.

June 8th vineyard update ....

A little over a week ago we got some very strong winds ... 90 mph!!! Yes, that is the same as a category 2 tornado or category 2 hurricane winds! WE got a lot of broken tree limbs and lost a lot of vine shoots. Since then we have gotten a lot of strong winds but nowhere near that strong. And we have had a lot of rains ... many times for several days in a row. In spite of frequent spraying, I have seen some minor signs of PM or DM. This is a first for me in the 5 or 6 years that I've had the vineyard. Hope I can get it under control.

Those replacement canes that I added this year sure are producing a lot of shoots. I have been busy shoot thinning and still have way too many!! And, the vines are in bloom this week and look like a very heavy set ... luckly we ave had no rain but some fairly strong winds. Marquettes usually don't need cluster thinning but it looks like I will need to drop a lot of clusters this year.

After using a 2 gallon sprayer since I started the vineyard, I finally decided that I needed something a little easier to use especially when the canopy is full (easier, meaning no pumping and tank re-filling). So ... I bought a 15 gallon sprayer with an electric pump. Still just a one nozzle spray wand but no pumping !!

Late Spring Freeze -- Survived !!

On May 2nd we got a nightime freeze down to 29*F and then again on May 3rd it got down to 26*F in the vineyards. Many of the vines had shoots with buds that had burst into small leaves.

Fortunately, because of previous experences with late spring freezes, when I did my early rough pruning I not only kept the canes on the cordon/spur fairly long (3 feet) but I also laid down new canes whenever I could and left them as long as possible. My hope was that because the buds open first at the ends of the canes and last at the start of the canes, that I would have some more "closed" buds that would not suffer as much damage if we got a late spring freeze.

It seems to have served me well this year. After final pruning (which would normally be down to 2 buds per cane on spurs) I had some losses on the canes that were from the cordon/spurs but very little loss from the the extra-long new canes that I laid down. After pruning these new canes down to 3 feet on each side of the vine it looks like I ended up with enough buds to get a full crop.

I'll try to leave renewal buds again this year in hopes of having replacement canes for the older cordons again next year. I may even consider going to cane pruning completely instead of cordon/spur pruning in future years.

Overall, the vines look good at this point.

Update RE: 2010 Harvest wine

Well it has been a long time since I last posted. I encountered some major health problems right after my last post that caused me to be house bound ever since. I'm now starting to get better and hope to pay better attention to my vineyard this year.

The 2010 harvest was quite small due to my sloppy job of netting. I got my wife to help but I apparently did not block out all the entry points for the birds (which we have lots of !!!). I also did not inspect my vineyard daily like I normally do and ignored them for several weeks only to find that about 75% of those beautiful grapes had been eaten! However, those that I did harvest were very nice. My wife de-stemmed and crushed them by hand for me (she didn't want to use the "crusher/de-stemmer" equipment). This is the same sweetie that planted my original Marquette vines several years ago because I was unable to (I had another heart attack just before the vines arrived).

Bad news aside, the 2010 grapes made a nice wine that ended up (after MLF and cold stabilization) at pH of 3.4 and TA of 6.1 g/l (.61%) without the use of any carbonates to reduce acid levels. With a little oak and some blending I expect it to be a nice wine when ready for drinking in a few years (this will be the 2nd harvest that ended up with similar numbers!!).

Looking forward to a good 2011 harvest and hoping for no early Spring freeze or other major weather problems.

A votre sante !!!

Updated Vineyard Pictures

Seems like every year there are new and different challenges to growing grapes. We've had tornado winds one year, then golf ball size hail another year, late frosts a couple of years, and this year we had a very very wet spring (vineyard was under 6 inches of water for several days) combined with 60+ mph thunderstorm winds that blew the canopy like a "kite'' and bent the wood posts over 45 degrees.

Things are looking better now. Vines are doing well. Veraison is just starting so the netting will go up soon along with the electric fencing.

Here are a few current pictures of the vineyards and a pic of some of my "cuttings" that I will use to fill in the empty spots vacated by the vines I took out this past spring.