After several weeks of cooler than normal weather it is warming up. Cane growth is less than normal but we expect it to catch up rapidly.
The images were taken today — the fruit has set and it is begining to form. Now we can get a fairly good estimate of the crop and start balancing the vine — reducing the fruit where necessary.
The grenache is estimated to yield nine tons per acre — an aburdly high number – but not unusual with Grenache at this stage. Workers will soon reduce the fruit load so that it is closer to three tons per acre.
Images are of Pinot Noir.
The first image shows workers in the Pinot Noir Block. Although it has not been very warm the canes are growing rapidly and workers are positioning them between the vertical support wires. At the same time they are ‘fan tipping’ the canes, that is snapping off the tip to encourage lateral growth, more leaves, more photosynthesis and better grapes.
The Pinot Noir has almost completed flowering and it is now ’set’ which means we can estimate the crop and begin balancing the vine with the fruit.
Although a little windy today, the weather is ideal and flowering continues. The second photo gives an overall view of vine growth and shows some of the canes reaching the first pair of wires that will guide them upwards.
In the past canes were allowed to fall over in a system called ‘head pruning’. Less labor intensive, but very inefficient since the canes covered one another reducing exposure. It also hid the fruit creating an ideal environment for mildew and mold.
Today most vineyards use a system of ‘vertical shoot positioning’ training the canes upwards through pairs of wires allowing the leaves to do their job and exposing the fruit. Vines need photosynthesis to mature and the trick is to balance the vine — the amount of fruit on any given vine and the leaves necessary to mature it.
This is a block of Riesling that was planted last year. The workers are removing all but one cane, selecting the strongest, and tying it to the post. In a few weeks they will return and cut the cane at the bottom wire to encourage the growth of lateral canes which will carry the fruit next year.
A beautiful spring day with ideal growing conditions – at this stage the vines grow very rapidly. As we did last year, we record the growth on an almost weekly basis. We show the sequence on our websites in two formats using high definition photos which can be zoomed for greater detail.
The images are of Pinot Noir and today we were giving them a little bit of water. We like drip irrigation — it reduces water consumption and it puts the water where the plant is.
Today it rained 1/2 an inch to give us a rather feeble 6 inches for the year. Although unusually late even this small amount is beneficial — the vines are growing rapidly and need the water.
This year, for the first time we can remember, the Syrah (in the foreground on the left) is ahead of the Pinot Noir. If both varieties should mature at the same time this would put a definite strain on manpower and equipment. More likely, the Syrah will slow down and regain its normal pace, so that in the end, it will be harvested several weeks after the Pinot Noir, which is the norm.
Shoot thinning — the removal of excess shoots on the cane begins almost as soon as there is growth. The purpose is to balance the vine. Here workers are working on Pinot Noir in the Lafond Vineyards. The vine has two canes, one on each side tied to the wire at the time of pruning, and each cane should have 6 grape bearing shoots, or 12 per vine.
It gets more complicated — at the head of each vine we need two canes for next years crop and two more as spurs for the year after that. Workers go through the entire vineyard doing this and it requires some delicacy. The ladies who do this take great care.
At this point it is difficult to distinguish shoots, canes and spurs but as growth continues these will be more obvious.
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