Spring Pruning & Dormant Spray

I've finally finished pruning the vines! It took a surprising amount of time, given that they had already been rough pruned - about 2 hrs/row. Yikes!

Last year I left WAY too many buds on - so because of that, and the fact that I'm trying to get powdery mildew (PM) under control, I pruned them VERY aggressively. I may have killed some even. But my goal this year is to get healthy vines, not lots of grapes.

Just before, and about a week after in some cases, I sprayed with a dormant spray of Lime Sulfur (1 quart / 3 gallons) to kill any over-wintering PM. I started spraying before final pruning, but quickly realized that was a waste of time, so instead pruned and sprayed about a week after.

In a few weeks, as buds swell, I'll know better how I did!

Handling Hillsides

Our vines are on a pretty steep hillside. Good news is that it's great exercise. Bad news is that I've been known to slip, twist ankles, etc - which is especially bad when wearing a 4-gallon backpack sprayer or carrying an armful of clippings.

So I investigated how others solve this problem, and remember the Mosel River Valley, in Germany. They used funiculars - these cool carts on rail systems that went up & down the slope of the hill, to make pruning and harvesting easier.

I posed the idea to my super handy husband - who at first was not interested at all, but given time he realized it was (a) an interesting puzzle, and (b) a project where he gets to build stuff.

So here's a picture of round one - a staircase ALL along the steepest side of the vineyard. It's 86 steps long (I think, I counted with my 4-year old nephew who may have missed a number or two).

Now it's a snap to get up & down, AND my boots are less likely to be caked in mud. Yeay!

Second and a half Racking

We racked our 07 wines again today; it went pretty smoothly.

90% of the battle is the cleaning and prep - sterilizing equipment, prepping bottles, etc. Here's a shot of our drying rack after rinsing everything with a sterilizing solution. We usually sterilize with a Sodium Metabisulfate solution, ratio is 1 tsp per gallon of water. According to EC Kraus, it's actually the gas released from the solution that sterilies - interesante!

Bruce is now testing the acid level (TA) in each batch:

Leach-07 = the good stuff = 5.25

Overlook-07 - the acidic stuff' = 8.25

Mostly Leach Blend - the stuff that tastes like a Cab = 5.8

Mostly Overlook Blend - the stuff that's coming around = 5.8