Vineyard at Sunrise

For the past month we have been tucking the grapevines up into the guide wires and this week we finished! Tucking is done for canopy management and ease at harvest time. Thankfully the temperatures are a bit more moderate, only reaching the high 90F's.

Normally, John and I have "mommy/daddy" time in the mornings before breakfast. We take time to have coffee in bed together and talk before properly starting the day. This week, however, we did something different - we had our morning coffee on top of the filter house. If you remember, for now we have a platform that looks out over the vineyard but eventually we will put a roof over it and make it a proper pavilion - the photo above is the sunrise over the vineyard that I took while there. It is so peaceful out there in the early morning hours! But, I must admit, getting out there so early is the challenge - morning coffee is also very good in the comfort of bed!

It is thrilling to see the vines recovering after being hurt so badly in the late freeze we had. Even though the grape crop was hurt terribly, the vines are thriving!

This foliage (or canopy) is so important for the health of the plants and roots. So, next year when there is a full crop, the plants will be that much healthier and able to ripen all the fruit!

You can see from the photo below that although the Montepulciano grapes planted this spring are behind in growth, they are also recovering growing nicely.

In a normal year, the t-post and wires (the trellising) would be in place and we would be training the vines. Most of these vines would have already grown up to the cordon wire (the wire which runs horizontal to the ground). As you can see, because of the freeze damage, we are letting them bush - this helps build the root system in preparation for the winter. We will train them next year.

Even though the grape load is a fraction of last year's, we do have grapes!

It is exciting to see the grapes, in fact, everyone is already dreaming of the taste of ripe grapes! For now, though, we will continue tucking the vines that have grown since we first walked through ... and waiting for ripe grapes!