Suckering Time

Note - this post was originally published 04.09.2014.

Spring has sprung and so have our schedules.  We're finding ourselves busier and busier which is exciting.  The Russian River Valley grapes are a little ahead of the Napa Valley vines in growth.  We started suckering this week and getting excited about this vintage of grapes.  Can you see the little clusters to-be in this photo?

Out here suckers are what we call the new growth.  And the vine sends out shouts all over, not just the places we've prepared for during pruning.  So, suckering is when we remove the extra shoots.  Less shoots leaves more resources (nutrients, water, etc) for the grapes to-be and gives us higher quality fruit.

All this lovely green after the last couple of winter/rain.  Here's a photo... making wine in the rain and hail last week:

Our Wine Project

Note - this post was first published 3/1/2014.

We're working on our dreams not only in the vineyard, but in the cellar too. 2013 is our first vintage as winemakers!  We're still hard at work; the wines aren't quite ready for release, but with a little patience the flavors are starting to shine and we're getting excited.

We've got a red and a white going.  Recently sampled our wine and took it to a local wine laboratory.

When we received the results and a little insight into how the is wine aging, we racked the wine (moved the clean wine off any sediment that had settled at the bottom) and looking down at the bottom of the empty barrel was one of my favorite photos from this week:

Winter Found Us

Note - this post was originally published 2/3/2014.

Who knew we would be so excited to welcome winter?  The weather has chilled and the clouds moved in for a good down pour and crisp wind.  On the Vaca Mountains (the mountain range on the eastern side of Napa Valley) there was even some snow!