A good use for table grapes

Frog!  Made of green apple, green grapes, fruit roll-up, marshmallows and chocolate chips.  

Stealing the cheese of strawberry, almond, licorice, and mini-chocolate chip mouse.

Maintenance & Water Thoughts

This year's been exceptionally cool; temps usually only in the mid-70s to low 80s.  As such, the PM pressure is relatively high, especially on the exposed / warmer /sunnier parts of the vine (versus in the canopy, which is usually where disease pressure is higher).  So, gave the vines a good healthy spray of Stylet Oil this week.  No signs of verasion - yet.

Also, given the berries are forming & growing, am erring on giving the vines too much, vs too little water, so this week they got 6 hrs drip.  These professionals, however are saying post-veraison may be a more important time to keep irrigation up.  Hmm.

Water + Potassium Bicarbonate for a change

The hill has definitely dried out, and given the fact that the vines are moving into berry-growth mode decided it's time for a good soak - so gave all rows 6 hrs of drip over the weekend.

Now, in my every-other-week spray program routine, I started from bottom of the vineyard to top, this time spraying with a 1.5% solution of Kaligreen (baking soda like substance). I figure that *if* we're fighting potassium deficiency may as well use this foliar PM erradicant. I don't know that potassium as a nutrient is picked up through the leaves, but at least there'll be a bit added to the soil as the residual drips onto the soil.

In any case I started from the bottom and finished bottom of row 4.  Will keep going up the hill as the week progresses.

Gold!

A couple months ago I entered one of our wines in the Orange County Fair.  We don't live anywhere near Orange County, but the Orange County Wine Society hosts a statewide amateur winemaking contest in conjunction with their county fair.  We heard that as a result you get 4 judges to taste and evaluate your wine, so we went for it and entered one of our 2007 Cabernet Sauvignons (Leach Vineyards).

To our surprise, we got a gold ribbon in the mail the other day.  Yeay!  Given that this is from grapes we didn't grow, kudos really go to Don, the grower we bought these grapes from who lives just a few miles down the road.

Some specifics from the judges:

- We got positive reviews on the basics: clarity/appearance, color, acidity, balance

- One judge sensed that we got a little green/vegetal smell and taste, but indicated it's 'not too bad'

- Another judge thought that the body was slightly thin, and that the finish tapers a bit too quickly

- The most laugh-inducing comment: "Skillfully made"

Specific words the judges used to describe the wine:
Plum, black cherry, nice spicy characteristic, balanced fruit & oak

Yuck!

I've noticed that portions of the vineyard sometimes develop odd-looking leaves, and often I chalk it up to lack of water, or nutrients.

BUT, there's one part of the vineyard (mid-downhill side of row 7) that for TWO years in a row now have looked like they got severely burned leaves early in the season.  Weird part is that later in the season, the new growth looks nice & green & healthy.  But year-over-year trends make me nervous.

There are 3 things I've noticed:
(a) the burning leaf look
(b) black tar-like gunk on the shoots (markedly different than PM indicators)
(c) hard to see here, but some leaves off of this shoot are very small & crinkley - maybe 10% of 'em.

Given these symptoms, my worst fear is that this is Eutypa Dieback, but symptoms look different, and in pruning I didn't notice any of the traditional wedge-shaped discoloration in wood.

A trusty guide of messed-up leaves points to possibly Potassium deficiency, here's an image from Virginia that looks kinda similar and indicates the burning appears on mid-shoot leaves.  Overall vineyard checked out as having enough potassium, but could be this chunk is low?  Hmm.

Pierce's Disease would be bad.   Leaves aren't dropping at the petiole, however - in fact the attachment is pretty strong.

A new one I've not heard of - Esca, or grape measels?!? So far this is the winner in terms of fit. In terms of treatment yuck.

Stylet Oil, water to top & bottom rows

Back in the vines this week, spending lots of training the vines such that they're in their trellis system (versus trailing down to the ground).  Also removing parts: individual leaves that are in the way of grape clusters, laterals, and even entire shoots that aren't doing anything productive for the vine's health.

Good news is that the grapes are starting to look like grapes!

I'm at the long end of spray interval (just over 2 weeks, yikes), so I sprayed all rows with my standard 1.5% stylet oil solution, and gave the top and bottom rows overnight drip.