Pulido Vineyard Management Blog 2013

Covering Camalie, Konrad and Crouse Vineyards on Mount Veeder

By Mark Holler

10/13/13 Picked 3.54 tons from K6 last block at Konrad Vineyards. Got flights back to Wisconsin to attend my favorite Uncle's Funeral. Back Thursday late.

10/12/13 Picking at Rubissow.

10/10-11/13 PICKED 3.840 Tons on 10/11/13 of Cabernet Sauvignon at Camalie Vineyards for Franciscan.

10/9/13 PICKED the rest of Crouse Vineyards, 5.571 tons of Cab and 1.185 tons of Merlot.

10/8/13 PICKED 1.313 tons for William Wood and Noel Relyea into their 139 FWBs. Lots of raisoned fruit in this block C8 at Camalie. I'm thinking I should pick up the raisons and make wine out of them just to understand what the issue is with raisoned fruit. There is at least a few hundred pounds of raisons there, not to mention the other blocks.

James and I went up to his vineyard and inspected his K6 fruit which is ready to pick in our opinion. We took a sample and got 27.4 Brix. Jason will come up tomorrow and take a look at it. We'll probably pick it next Tuesday because the schedule is full until then. We restarted the pond siphon and put a gallon and a half on the block

10/7/13 PICKED ~4 tons at Rubissow. I'm not involved in the Rubissow farming so I don't have much in the way of details. I took the day to haul a pickup load of harvest party trash (mostly empty winebottles) to the dump.

10/6/13 INNOCULATED Camalie Must and make some measurements on it. Camalie juice sample had a 4.1pH and T.A. of 7.5 g/l. crazy numbers. Not even I belive them although Jay Turnipseed showed me some data on Camalie that did show the acidities are high. The pH. I can't explain. Maybe the new probe or my calibration reference solutions or my technique.

10/5/13 PICKED ~3 tons from K2L for Randle Johnson and 1 ton from Camalie block 1 for my Camalie home winemaking. Got 26.4 Brix in the tank. My replacement pH probe showed up. Sorry no pictures. Just too busy.

10/4/13 VERY WINDY. Picked 4 tons of grapes at Rubissow vineyards today headed for Franciscan. Sunny and warm though. Seeing more scenescence all the time. Its as though the grape vines have timed out rather than cool weather bringing on the color change. The battery in the forklift died. We were able to jump start it until the battery could be replaced.

10/3/13 Picked another 4.476 tons this time from Konrad block K5. This corresponds to 3.2 tons/acre. I gave Ramon a Bill of Lading with the wrong address but a map to the right address which resulted in him taking a detour to Stag's leap before getting the fruit to Andretti winery where Jeff Ames had found a tank empty in time to take advantage of the Rubissow cancellation of their Thursday pick. We very much appreciate his scrambling to get boxes to us in time to enable us to fill in the gap in our schedule. Thanks Jeff.

Eric Hagyard who works with Aaron Pott graciously shared the ETS report on his must from Crouse Orleans Block 6. Here is his comment on it: "Malic seems a bit high, but I have seen that elsewhere this year, and I would love to see a smaller Potassium, not sure how to influence that though, any ideas?" The YAN seems low at 85ppm but, he didn't seem to think so. He said everything he gets is below 125. Camalie initially had high potassium, high pH fruit when we bought it but the issue has dissipated with consistent farming and a replant. Not totally true if you believe the data above on 10/6. Not sure why the problem went away at Camalie but, I am sure that Crouse Vineyards will be receiving more consistent farming under our supervision. We definitely won't fertigate with any potassium.

10/2/13 Picked 4.349 tons of Cabernet Sauvignon from Crouse Orleans Block and a fringe of her Block 4. We have harvested 12.1 tons from Crouse Vineyards thus far and expect to harvest 6-7 tons more. Sampled 60 petioles from Orleans block at Crouse Vineyard and sent to Dellavalle lab for analysis of the nutritional status of the vines. The vines are sinescing early or showing some type of nutritional deficiency. The Crouse main well ran mostly dry after giving us 230K gallons. Quite good for a Mount Veeder well. The reservoir on the other hand only provided about 50K gallons of its 300K capacity due to leakage. The vines have each received about 50 gallons which is adequate but low especially for these relatively large old vines being cropped more heavily than in the past. Their old/deep roots help them survive on less water.

The schedule is filling up with the second half picks now, some of the bigger ones. Jeff Ames jumped into the picking slot tomorrow after Rubissow canceled out and Randle Johnson is scheduled for Saturday.

10/1/13 Picked 1.48 tons for Eric Hagyard from Crouse Orleans Block 6.

9/30/13 RAIN TOTAL 0.2" OVERNIGHT Through Noon. The grapes have been wet for 18 hours which is enough time to germinate botrytis but the temp has been only 59-65F during this time. Too cold for germination which requires 15 hours at 72F. This rain should have minimal impact on our harvest of K3L this morning. It really hasn't wet the soil significantly. We picked 1.7075 tons for David Tate from K3L in a light drizzle and had an extremely difficult time getting the truck down the hill safely. We had to chain a 4.5 ton tracked crawler to the back of the truck to provide enough braking and rear end stability to keep the truck out of the reservoir. Check out a video or two of the grape truck, grapes and crawler sledding down a very slick Mount Veeder hillside. Pardon the sound track. When you see it you gain an appreciation of the challenges we growers sometimes have to rise to. Ramon Pulido drove the truck, Miguel his first hand on the crawler kept him out of the reservoir. It will be a while before we pick in the rain at Konrad again.

9/29/13 RAIN AGAIN. Started at 6:00pm, about .03" by 7:30pm and then it quit. No more rain now at 9:00pm as I write this. We'll have slightly wet conditions tomorrow picking K3L for David Tate. Rubissow scheduled their first pick of 4 tons for Tuesday bumping Eric Hagyard to later in the day.

9/28/13 CAMALIE CRUSH. We picked the ramaining 720 lbs. of fruit from Konrad K2U, and 540 lbs. from Crouse Vineyards Block 6 for Samples winemaking this year. The sugar levels were 29.1 and 28.4 Brix respectively.

The totals for K2U are now complete with 1.065 tons going to Hunter, .519 tons to Sherman and the remaining .36 tons going to me for a total of 1.944 tons from this block of .75 acres and 647 vines. This translates to a yield of 2.59 tons/acre and 6.0 lbs/vine for the block overall. This is identical to the yields we saw for the other upper blocks, K3U and K4U.

About 30 people showed up for the Camalie crush event and had a great time. The weather was perfect. The only scare was a medium size rattle snake that showed up in the dark on the Camalie retaining wall as the last guests were leaving. They spotted it in their headlights as we were standing by the wall waving goodby. It was coiled ready to strike. I dispatched it by the light of their headlights with a shovel as it tried to crawl under their car.

Ramon and crew also picked Konrad K1 which yielded 2.647 tons. Including the .5435 tons picked from this block for Ryan Sherman the day before, K1 yielded 3.190 tons from .98 acres or 3.25 tons/acre in spite of 8% dehydration, fruit at 29 Brix and world class quality. This is a record for this block. Do we know how to grow grapes or what! James told us how the vines in this block almost died one year save for his getting out and irrigating it personally.

9/27/13 PICKED 4.4 TONs at KONRAD for Rob Hunter and Ryan Sherman today. Beautiful fruit and surprisingly high yield for dehydrated fruit from K4L; 3.4 tons/acre at 29.1 Brix. K4U yielded only 2.5 tons/acre a week before. Ramon took a nasty wasp sting on the leg. We're working with Jeff Ames to schedule his K5 pick now.

9/26/13 WEEKLY BRIX UPDATE. Some interesting results. Here's my take on the data: At Camalie where the Brix have been a couple points behind the other vineyards you can see that they advanced by about 1 Brix varying by block from .3 to 1.6 Brix advance. The Camalie fruit is now all above 24 Brix which is good since Camalie is having its harvest party this Saturday at which I will be picking grapes for my own home winemaking. You are all invited of course. I've, talked Dr. Konrad and Ms. Crouse into giving me a little of their fine grapes for my winemaking as well. We have to have wine samples to sell grapes (:-)).

The brix data for Konrad Vineyards indicates some significant dehydration in K1, almost a 2 point Brix rise from 26.4 to 28.2. Jeff Fontanella has scheduled to pick this on Saturday. K2U was already at 28 brix and went up another half point. The slowest blocks to ripen at Konrad, K2L and K6 , advanced 1.2 Brix and .7 Brix respectively getting them both above 25 Brix. K4L takes the record for this year's highest cab brix reading at 29.1 Brix.

Crouse Vineyards Cab brix advance in contrast has slowed to a crawl indicating that dehydration is not taking place. The Brix levels are all above 25 which means that sugar levels are adequate for good winemaking even if there is no further increase in the Brix. There is significant chlorosis and red coloration in the leaves especially in Orleans(6). This is definitely not a soil moisture problem which suggests that it is a nutrition issue. I took a petiole sample today to see if I can figure out what is going on. My hypothesis is that the vines just ran out of nitrogen and may need some phosphorus and/or magnesium as well. We cropped these vines almost 2X heavier this year and fertilized them once at the end of last season and again at the start of this season after which they set a big crop and did very well until the start of September. I think they just ran out of nutrition. I plan to make an application as soon as I can confirm the deficiencies and their magnitude. The plan is to harvest the rest of the Crouse Vineyards on Wednesday and Thursday of next week.

9/25/13 PICKING SCHEDULE FILLING UP. Picks scheduled Friday through next Thursday now. See latest schedule below.

9/22/13 FRUIT DRIED OFF. We had a warm sunny, breezy day with a high of 72F and a low humidity of 50%. Looks like we are back on track, no damage done.

9/21/13 RAIN 0.5" Total at Camalie and 0.23" at Konrad. The 0.2" of the rain fell last night between midnight and 4:30am and the rest during the morning today.

Sherman called this morning and pulled in his K2U pick to this Wednesday at the same time as Hunter.

Below is a picture from this morning of the rain on the Cab at Camalie. Notice it is not wetting much which is good. If you look close you can see more wetting in the darker areas of the grapes where the wax has been rubbed off of the grapes.

Below is a picture of some sun damaged Chardonay where you can see the water wetting much more widely. This is why Chardonay is more susceptable to botrytis than the Cab. The thinner skins are another reason.

This is a relatively small amount of rain and with the 62-64F temp on Saturday should have little effect on the grapes. Thes conditions should not be enough to germinate botrytis. Botrytis needs "free water" on the grapes for 15 hours at 72F to initiate its growth. Leafing of the canopy to allow rapid drying of the fruit after rain is a first line defense. We are in good shape on that count. Another defense is to plant varieties with loose clusters, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot are on the list of highly resistant varieties in the technical reference below. The rain we received did put free water on at least the grapes not protected by the canopy. See photos above. The botrytis also needs sugar to germinate which usually comes from damaged berries but, the reference says enough sugar can leach out of a thin skinned variety in two hours with water on the grapes to enable germination of botrytis. Botrytis technical reference.

Ramon however, has always told me that it takes more than 1" of rain to cause any problems with botrytis in the cab. I can't remember any observations to the contrary.

Bottom line after all this, We shouldn't have any problem with botrytis from this rain event.

If you want to watch the rain accumulation and temperature in real time.

9/20/13 Harvested K3U,K4U for Jeff Fontanella. Eight boxes 4.133 tons, 2.55 tons/acre. Fruit looks good, Jeff was happy. We're happy with the yield.

Ramon then moved his equipment and crew over to Godspeed vineyards later than expected where he ended up rolling his forklift down a slope fortunately to be stopped by a row of trellising, bringing new meaning to the term "catch wires". As he dangled from his seatbelt, adrenaline pumping, epithets were exchanged with Larry about the slope of the loading area, damage to the vine row, damage to the forklift and whose rope they were going to use to pull the forklift back up the hill. It was one of those ugly episodes in grapegrowing that is not part of the dream but, is part of the reality. Very fortunately Ramon suffered only some soreness though it is hard to tell for sure. The forklift is still functional. It will probably be a while before Ramon does any more fill in jobs for Larry.

Rob Hunter came up to taste his fruit and scheduled his pick for next Wednesday the 25th. We have open slots in the picking schedule on Monday and Tuesday and after Rob's one ton on Wednesday. David Tate's K3L, Julie Arbuckle's K5 and even K1 will be ready to pick by then in our opinion.

Four ladies on the picking crew this morning. Apologies to Larry Stryker at Godspeed for usurping his picking plans for this morning. Ramon did get the job done in the afternoon.

As James and I sat on the veranda we saw the clouds start coming in. Slight chance of rain tonight and 40% tomorrow. We can handle up to an inch with no risk of botrytis. Brix will drop back though. That we as growers can afford. What happens to the flavor I don't know.

9/19/13 Jeff Fontanella called and scheduled his pick of K3U, K4U for tomorrow morning 9/20/13. The 28 Brix readings and the shrivel are too close to the edge of shutdown to wait any longer for flavor enhancements. I think its a good decision.

Ryan Sherman scheduled to pick on Friday 9/27/13.

I showed Crouse Orleans block 6 to a young winemaker working for Aaron Pott and tentatively sold 1.5 tons to him for $5500/ton. Looking at Crouse yields again, last years's results and considering dehydration we have taken the other 2.5 tons off of the market to make sure Karen has enough fruit for her program.

William Wood and his wife Noel Relyea came up to look at their Camalie block 8 fruit and Jay Turnipseed was here from Franciscan as well. He is puzzling over the high T.A.s they are seeing even with fruit above 25 Brix.

9/18/13 ALL BLOCK SAMPLING It takes me about 4 hours to sample all of the blocks and another hour to take the Brix readings. See the table below.

Some highlights from the data which looks self consistent:

Crazy high values: K3U 28.9 Brix, K4U, K2U both 28.1 Brix. The sun exposed fruit is quite dimpled and some shriveled but, seems to be stable, not getting more shriveled. Aggressive irrigation is holding the line. Winemaking with this fruit is going to require some major intervention either watering back or de-alc-ing.

The Konrad and Crouse vineyards are all above 25 Brix and could be picked at any time based on sugars. Exceptional flavors are present everywhere but, it's not clear that the median fruit has reached that quality. Now is a good time to come out and taste if you have one of the blocks in these vineyards.

Camalie Vineyards is a different story. With an average brix of about 23.5 it is about 2 Brix behind the other vineyards and has made no advance in the last week. The heavier crop load is the most likely explanation for this difference relative to the other vineyards. The yield analysis I did back on 9/1 indicates that Camalie is cropped at 3.6 tons/acre vs. 2.8 tons/acre for Crouse. This year we have lots of growing season left and should have no problem ripening all of the fruit but, in a year like 2010 or 2011 this would be(was) a problem. You can't fault a grower for trying to get as much yield as possible out of his vineyard any more than you can fault a winemaker for letting his fruit dry out to reduce tonnage. We're just trying to make a buck.

The reason for the lack of advance is most likely the fruit rehydrating after the 4 day heat wave we had 9/3-9/6/13. The prior Brix measurements a week ago were taken just a few days after the heat wave.

The table below presents today's brix numbers. Enjoy! No new picks have been scheduled. No picks are currently scheduled.

Pretty sunrise reflected in the solar panels this morning.

Vines flame out as winemakers delay harvest (:-)) I had to look really hard to find this vine.

9/17/13 Picked Camalie Merlot, 0.769 tons for Alex Hutnik of the WineStash. My sampling of the fruit at the start of the pick with the temp about 55F at 6:30am yielded a Brix reading of 29.2 Brix. We weighed the fruit both with my little tail gate scale and at St. Bart's crushpad certified weighmaster's scale and discovered that my scale is reading high. I guess 10 years of weighing tons of fruit has taken its toll. It's history now. Have to find an alternative for small picks.

9/22/13 Scale Calibration Check Follow Up:

I need to get out there tomorrow and take another round of Brix readings although they don't seem to have much effect on harvest decision making at this point. We have now picked about 7.5 tons of the 65 tons total expected.

9/16/13 Picks Postponed much to our chagrin but, understandably. Jeff Fontanella and Ryan Sherman both came up to the vineyard to inspect and taste their grapes in blocks K1, K2U, K3U, K4U. Dr. Konrad hosted them to Coffee and pastries on the deck. I wasn't there but, I did get a call from Jeff explaining their decision to delay from this Wednesday into next week. He explained that the biggest factor was a change in the weather forecast that had reduced the chances of rain on the weekend. Second to that was their observation that the grapes had not continued to shrivel and have actually shown some rehydration probably a result of our boosting of irrigation times by almost 50 %. I noted that PVM has with the addition of the Crouse vineyard this year grown its business to encompass 65 tons of grapes this year. Thus far we have harvested only about 5 tons, mostly merlot which ripens first. The harvest schedule is going to get busy and not every one is going to get their ideal harvest date.

Being a little skeptical and needing to reprime the Konrad siphon I went out to the vineyard late this afternoon took a sample looked for myself at the grapes in K4U. I got a Brix reading of 27.7 Brix and saw very small and mostly dimpled berries. Below you can see what the fruit looks like on the vine. This fruit was actually at 27.4 Brix a week ago in the early morning. If you assume the typical 1 brix rise from morning to evening the brix today is actually lower than it was a week ago after the heat wave. This is good. It indicates the fruit is slightly rehydrating rather than dehydrating and is stable for the moment.

Below you can see the berry size and the percentage of brown seeds. We are getting very close to the right time to pick. Flavors I would have to agree could improve a little but, we are now focusing on the difference between 95 point wine and 98 point wine. I respect winemakers who pay this much attention to the flavor of their fruit.

Below you can see the Konrad Manifold pressure restored this late afternoon.

This is the kind of view one is treated to when out in the vineyards at sunset. Note Mount Diablo 50 miles out on the left, clear skys. View from K5, Julie Arbuckle's Block.

Just a week back Mount Diablo was on fire.

9/15/13 Sunday Day of rest not much happening. I drove back to Palo Alto last evening to reacquaint myself with my family and pamper my wife Cindy who broke her toe kicking into the pantry door. I also replaced the power supply on my camalienetworks.com server which smoked a few days back. This blog is being served by an 8 year old Compaq laptop in our Napa garage which is very power efficient.

Alan Moyal shared the lab report on the 1.25 tons of merlot he received from us and crushed on Saturday. The Brix was good at 25.2 but, the acidity was substantially lower than what we saw for the adjacent cab we harvested 8 days earlier. This is expected both because the fruit is merlot and because is has had 8 more days on the vine. pH was 3.7 and T.A. 4.4 g/l. He says he is planning an acid addition. Assimalable Nitrogen was only 83 ppm which says we are still far from over fertilizing these vines.

9/14/13 Picked Crouse Merlot, pulled 1.376 tons from Toulouse for Diablo View Winery and 2.223 tons from Decatur for Joel Criste, leaving about 1.25 tons behind for blending in Karen's wine program. The yield numbers are in the table below. The two Merlot Blocks yielded very differently. Toulouse yielded very much like its cab neigbor with 4.0 tons/acre while Decatur yielded only 2.41 tons/acre. I'm sure the Merlot at Camalie is approaching 30 Brix if it isn't already there.

Jeff Fontanella scheduled picking of his fruit at Konrad Vineyards for Wednesday. See the schedule below for other details.

The Merlot harvesting with the sprawl trellising takes much longer to pick and as a result we ended up picking grapes until 2:00pm. even with 6 people including Ramon and myself. Ramon is enlisting more folks for future picks especially at Crouse.

Below is Alan Moyal with his Toulouse Merlot. He was up early and out of there quick because he decided to truck his fruit himself. He is a biotech engineer working for Genentech. Winemaking is child's play for him.

Below is a shot of Decatur at Sunrise. Having a tracked crawler is the only safe way to get fruit out of this block. It's steeper than it looks in this photo.

We were picking so long even Jasper the dog ran out of gas. A picture of our scale and trailer for hauling smaller lots.

9/13/13 Sat quietly trying to avoid Friday the 13th, 2013 bad luck. I'm pleased to report we were successful. You wouldn't expect a scientist to be so superstitious but, after farming a Magic vineyard for a year I have changed my perspective.

9/12/13 Picked Crouse Duphine vineyard (7) this morning. It produced .9575 tons of fruit from 395 vines on .65 acres. This corresponds to a yield of 4.8 lbs/vine or 1.47 tons/acre. The fruit went to up and coming Napa winemaker Steve Nelson. He reports that the crushed fruit in the tank was 25.5 Brix, 3.8pH, 5.2g/l T.A. .

Here's Ms. Crouse walking up to the top of her Duphine block. You know she's happy when you can see her smile 20 yards away.

Jeff Fontanella came up for a look at his fruit at Konrad Vineyards blocks K1, K3 and K4 and was concerned about substantial dimpling/shriveling of the sun exposed fruit on the East side of the vines. He was/is concerned that the vines may be giving up on these clusters and shuting down any further development before their flavors are mature. In looking at the vines I believe these clusters will continue to mature for several reasons. First the rachis is still viable, green or light brown and turgid not dried up and dark brown. This means the bunch still has a fluid connection to the shoot and can continue to receive water and nutrition from the vine. Second the vine canopies are still green with little or no basal leaf yellowing. And finally the irrigation has been turned up to 3.4 hours x 3 times per week or about 6 gallons/week. The ground was still wet from an irrigation last night. Still we need to keep an eye on this because I could be wrong and they do stop developing, forcing consideration of an earlier harvest of just this fruit if they are far enough along or dropping of this fruit if they are not mature enough.

This was not our luckiest day even though it was the day before Friday the 13th, 2013. Louis is out for three days after being stung by yellow jackets multiple times when he string trimmed into a nest later in the day. We also had a flat tire on the grape trailer used in the vineyard just as it reached about 3/4 ton load. Ramon and crew managed this in stride.

9/11/13 BRIX UPDATE. Cool, overcast day today. Temperature at 10:40am is only 63F. New Brix numbers taken today. See below. The Merlot at Camalie actually lost a half point in Brix. Camalie still consistently 2 Brix behind Konrad. Franciscan took some samples this morning too. I'll share their Lab results when I get them.

9/10/13 FOUR PICKS SCHEDULED. Two picks are now scheduled for Thursday and two for Saturday. There is new sampling data for Crouse Block 7 Duphine cab by Steve Nelson which shows 26.5 Brix, 3.76pH, 4.8g/l T.A. Based on this he is picking Thursday.

We bumped up irrigation times at Konrad Vineyards by 0.5 gallon/event x 3 times/week about a 30% increase for now to replace some of the water lost to dehydration and to enable the grapes to continue ripening, producing more mature flavors. The siphon has an air leak in a valve in the pond that is no longer submerged causing air in the siphon and reduced pressure. We plan to replace this valve tomorrow.

I installed a wireless control on the Crouse wells which allows me to turn them on and off from my cell phone or anywhere on the internet. The technology may as well be called Magic.

Below you can see the mini heat wave we had on the 6th-9th of September.

9/9/13 Monday SUGAR SPIKE CONTINUES. The 5 samples I took at Konrad this morning at 10:00am were all over 25 Brix with K4U actually 27.4. If you aren't thinking about picking yet you should be. We're turning up the irrigation to counter the dehydration from this heat spell on any fruit not scheduled or scheduled to pick more than a week out.

I took some Brix data over at Crouse later in the day which was less urgent but still indicates that Karen's Merlot is almost ready to pick. Alan and Joel are planning to pick on the weekend.

Below you can see seed colors from K1. I thought they look fairly brown but Jeff Fontanella said he thinks they still have a lot of green. I'm not going to argue about it. The nice thing about data (including images) is that it has no bias, makes no judgements it just is what it is. I have done my best to give you representative data. Judge the meaning of it for yourself.

The picture below shows the dehydration in Konrad Block K4U which is at 27.4 Brix. I'm only an amateur winemaker but, even I know that this is the kind of fruit winemaker's dream about. Note the vine is showing no yellow basal leaves. With irrigation we should be able to bring the Brix back down some or at least stabilize it.

Here is some Merlot from Crouse Block Toulouse(5). The effects of the sun are evident here visually but, you have to go to the vineyard to taste the flavor enhancement of the sun. The California Sprawl here provides a significant portion of the fruit with this sun exposure but it is not uniform. You could think of it as a separate fruit element almost like a different cultivar in a field blend.

I spent the morning at Konrad Vineyards repriming the siphon from his pond. Not sure why it failed for the first time this late in the season. I also moved the pond level sensor out farther into the pond and was pleased to find there was quite a bit more depth out there. According to the water meter we should still have 30% of our water supply left. This is plenty to reverse the dehydration of the last few days. I just need to go out and change the time settings on the irrigation controllers. At Crouse Vineyards I was out early installing and test running a wireless well pump control. Currently we have to turn the well on and off every day manually to fill the tank 250 ft. up and 150 yards away. On the weekends it doesn't happen. Computers work on weekends.

9/8/13 6:30pm. 28.6 BRIX. It's been hot, 91, 94, 94F at Camalie. I went out and took a sample of the Merlot at Camalie which is the fruit that ripens earliest at Camalie. Usually 2 weeks ahead of the cab. My sample came in at 28.6 Brix. The flavors are ripe and the fruit is barely dimpled. Now would be a good time to pick this fruit. I did give warning to Alex that these vines love to make sugar. Here's a picture of the fruit. There are some raisoned bunches but, not more than 10-15%.

9/8/13 Harvest Schedule. Below is the beginning of the harvest schedule. It will evolve as more data and picking decisions come in.

9/7/13 SECOND HARVEST. We picked the small block of Malbec, 160 vines, at Konrad Vineyards this morning. By agreement with Dr. Konrad my investment in the planting 3.5 years ago enabled me to take the first fruit. We harvested 692 lbs of fruit which is 4.3 lbs/vine. The sugar level in the tank after crush is 25.7 Brix. Overnight the brix went up to 26 Brix, perfect. Flavor is excellent, very fruity, no herbaceaousness. I'm fermenting with Chr. Hansen Concerto yeast for the first 3 days to get the most fruit out of it I can. Kluyveromyces thermotolerans is a yeast strain that they have isolated from wild ferments and found to improve fruity elements in the wine. You have to use it at the start of your fermentation when temp is below 77F and alcohol is below 9%. I'm still looking for that elusive fruity accent for Mount Veeder Cab.

Here's a picture of the Malbec before we picked it just as the sun was coming up. Thanks again to Randle Johnson for helping us find this cultivar. We did tip the shoots at bloom as he suggested to improve fruit set.

Here is a pretty picture of the Malbec block from the bottom. If you look close you can see Louis picking up at the top of row 3. The block on the left in the sun by the water tank is our favorite block, K1. This photo shows dramatically how K1 gets early morning sun while the rest of the vineyard is still in shade. K1 IS special. Ramon did a pruning experiment in row 4 he didn't tell me about. He did kicker cane pruning there. The fruit had much smaller berries and lower yield. Hard to say if quality was better. Concentration was higher due to the smaller berries.

Below is the Malbec in the back of my pickup waiting to be crushed. The stems are really strong, jamming up the destemmer worse than other varietals. Tastes like candy. pH looks low at 3.37pH but, my pH meter needs a new electrode. My T.A. measurement which is also suspect was 6.5g/l for the Malbec.

We had a high of 93F today. I expect the hot weather is going to boost the brix by 2 points by the time I get out to measure again. If you haven't put our fruit on your harvest schedule you should very soon. I plan to sample Brix again Sunday or Monday.

The irrigation siphon at Konrad broke pressure and needs to be debugged and restarted.

9/6/13 FIRST HARVEST. We picked Crouse block 5 Cab(Dumaine), Gates and friends crushed it on the side of Mt. Veeder Rd. and it is now rolling along the highway toward Colorado. This block has 302 vine sites across .6 acres and about 268 actual vines since about 11% are missing. If you remember this block has reddish volcanic soil which is unique in the vineyards we manage. It is also the earlierst to ripen. This block yielded 1.877tons which corresponds to 3.12 tons/acre even with the missing vine sites included. This is right in the middle of the two estimates I made earlier for the Crouse Vineyard, 3.5 tons/acre initially and later 2.8 tons/acre but, both were for block 6 not block 5 Cab which is somewhat different. I think it's clear the yield is high this year. As a result Ms. Crouse has put 4 more tons of Cab on the market and 2 tons of Merlot.

Below are a couple shots of the Gooding operation. It's heart warming to see the next generation going to great lengths to make fine wine. How could I not help them out. They crushed and destemmed almost 2 tons of fruit with a hand crank destemmer. They have a good plan and determination. I expect they will make some great wine. They picked excellent fruit to start with which is at least 3/4 of a good wine.

The plan is to pick the Malbec at Konrad Vineyards tomorrow morning and make wine out of the roughly 400 lbs of fruit anticipated at Camalie.

9/4/13 Gates and his brother Marsh met with me at Crouse block 5 Cab (Dumaine) and we took samples. My 100 grape sample at about 8:00am was 25.7 Brix, up 1.0 Brix from 24.7 Brix , five days earlier. They took samples to ETS for analysis. The report is here: Sept4_2013Bk5cab The ETS Brix number is 0.7 Brix below mine but, Gates sampled the long row which crosses a swale. Note the YAN is 115ppm which is on the low side but, good. It says our fertigations have not been excessive. The plan is to harvest this fruit on Friday 9/6. The rate of Brix rise is typical to a little high for this time of year although it varies by +/- 100%.

If you believe this number and think ripening will continue at this rate then all the fruit that was at 23 Brix on 8/30 is now at 24 Brix and will be at 25 Brix by early next week. Dumaine is atypical in that it is ripening 2 brix ahead of the other blocks at Crouse and it is on volcanic soil so it may not be representative of other blocks but, in the absense of other data it is saying that we should be harvesting most fruit by Mid September. It's also telling me that I need to go and take another round of Brix Measurements in the next few days.

9/1/13 Yield Estimates

I did a couple yield estimates, this time with actual bunch weights which turned out to be lighter than my default rule of thumb number. My daughter Natalie gave me a hand.

We did bunch counts on 4 vines at Camalie in mid Row 50 an got 40, 30, 29, 29. We then picked one of the vines with 29 bunches and cut off all the bunches on one cordon of that vine and weighed them. Row 50 is in the middle of the block below the house about halfway between the heavier upper part and the lighter lower part. Below are the bunch weights and a photograph of the bunches with the scale we used for weighing.

4.6 oz x 29 bunches = 8.3 lbs./vine x 3700 Cabernet Sauvignon vines at Camalie = 15.3 tons. Note the average weight is about a quarter pound not the 1/3 lb. number I used in my earlier estimate. This corresponds to about 3.6 tons/acre. This is down just a little from my earlier estimate of 3.8 tons/acre.

We did a similar measurement at Crouse Vineyards in Orleans (Block 6), row 27, mid row. We counted bunches on 4 vines and got 63.56,46 and 53. The lower bunch count vines had one or half of one cordon cut off which is quite common in this block. We picked the vine with 53 bunches and removed half the clusters and weighed those 27 bunches.

Here are the numbers:

4.23 oz. x 54 bunches/vine = 14.3 lbs. per vine. An eleven vine bunch count in this block earlier in the year yielded an average bunch count of 42/vine. Using that more conservative number, 4.23 oz. x 42 bunches = 11.1 lbs/vine. x 500 vines/acre in this block translates to 2.8 tons/acre. This is quite a bit less than the 3.5 ton/acre estimate I made back in June.

Below is a pretty picture of Konrad K6. The vineyards and fruit are in general looking very good. The only reservation I have is the water supply which is almost gone now in all 3 vineyards with still 6 weeks until the first rains. Fortunately the fruit will likely be coming off in the next 3-4 weeks and we usually stop irrigating a week or two before harvest. We're almost home. Gates is tentatively planning on picking the Crouse Block 5 cab this Thursday.

Big sky day yesterday from Mount Veeder.

Trying to keep a well running at Camalie I had to deal with ants in the pressure switch contacts. Apparently electrocution is a glorious way to expire in ant culture.

I have a good picture of a 4' gopher snake lying across the road too.

8/30/13 Brix Data

Brix Comments: Crouse Block 5 cab on volcanic soil is the biggest anomaly at 24.7 Brix. Mr. Gooding and I are in urgent talks about how to deal with this surprise.

Camalie is about 2 brix behind the other two vineyards. Don't ask me why. Konrad Malbec will be the first to harvest there. I'm looking forward to making wine from this.

In general the flavors are coming along nicely with a few bunches here and there previewing the fully ripe flavors to come. I'm excited.

Berry sizes are smaller than average and the weather is dryer than most years so expect more concentrated flavors. Fruit set was better than average so tonnage will likely be typical or better.

In general the brix distribution across each vineyard is quite tight which means our block by block fertigation and irrigation biases are working.

8/21/13 Smooth Sailing, Great weather, a couple hot days but also some cool days with a little morning fog. Water supplies are holding up. Here are some pictures.

Here's an idyllic picture from the Volcanic Dumaine Block at Crouse Vineyards.

Here's what the fruit looks like in this block. This is your fruit Gates Gooding. Very nice. You can see about 16 bunches in this photo of half a cordon which translates to 32 bunches for a vine. At a third of a pound per cluster these vines will yield 10 lbs per vine. Given you are contracted for this block of 300 vines you should expect about 3000 lbs of fruit or 1.5 tons.

Lest you think that all is perfect on Mt. Veeder here is a vine in Dumaine showing less vigor and some water stress. Note the yellow basal leaves. This is O.K. as we strive to water stress the vines to some degree but since they aren't all identical some are more stressed than others.

Below is a pretty picture of some Merlot from Crouse block Toulouse. Alan, this is your fruit.

There are a few berries less than totally ripe but, we have done the "green drop" to remove the greenest fruit which is clearly outside of the normal distribution.

Below is some Cabernet Sauvignon from Crouse Block Orleans. Note the old cordon has been cut off and one of last year's shoots trained to take over.

At the highest point in Orleans the vines are weaker probably due to limited water and nutrition in prior years. We're working on improving these vines by doubling the drippers here.

I just like this photo. Photos of all perfect grapes get boring after awhile. There is still some greenish fruit here and there. I think you can see evidence of every powdery mildew spray in the stripes on these grapes. This is from Orleans but is not representative.

Here is a very happy Merlot vine at the top of Crouse block Decatur. Growing again.

Here's some Merlot fruit from Decatur.

Here is some Cabernet Sauvignon from Crouse Block Duphine. Steve this is your fruit. No excess vigor here. Steve this is your fruit. Hard to get water here as the tank is only 5 ft. above this block. Even with one timer valve per row I can only irrigate this block if the tank is full to the top.

Here you can see that the Crouse reservoir is pretty close to empty. However, the upper well is producing nicely and should carry us through to Harvest. Note the plastic you see in this photo was an attempt to stop the 90% leakage from this reservoir but, had no effect. I want to do a little soil sampling along the dam face end of the reservoir to see if there is a porous silt layer in the dam that's allowing the leakage.

Dr. Konrad's pond is in better shape but, it needs to be since he has no wells.

My neighbor's Reservoir is in relatively good shape too. Important since he supplys a portion of the Camalie Water supply.

Here's a 3 year old Malbec vine at Konrad Vineyards looking good. I'm fortunate to be able to make wine from this fruit this year. I paid for half of the planting. It tastes like plums.

Close up of the Malbec fruit. About 10 bunches per vine, 3.3 lbs, and 170 vines should yield about 500 lbs. of fruit.

Here I am in Konrad K6 with some really nice looking fruit. Why can't every year be like this?

Here is a close up of the Queen Ann's Lace that adorns the vineyard rows as you can see above. It creates a virtual layer about 3 ft. off the ground which makes walking down the rows a surreal experience this time of year, like wading through a sea of white. Do come for a visit if you have the time.

Here's Dr. Konrad with his K6 fruit, happy about having a good year.

Another Idyllic view at Konrad Vineyards on the way down from his pond. James is in the process of putting the vineyard on the market should you be interested in owning this prime piece of God's green earth yourself. Ramon and I'll be happy to grow your grapes for you as we have done for James.

James in K1 in front of his Eastern Redwoods.

Below is some of the renowned K1 Cab.

Konrad K1. It doesn't get any better than this.

This is what the surnburned fruit in K1 looks like now, those few bunches that haven't been dropped yet.

And last but, not least Randle, hear is K2L. Note the excellent vine balance of these dry farmed, unfertigated vines.

Here's a little blurb we put together at David Tate's request. If you would like to use it or some derivative of it in your marketing feel free to do so.

Dr. Konrad's vineyard has been sustainably farmed for 35 years on a ridge in the Mayacamas mountains at the center of the Mt.Veeder Appellation.   Its deep fine grained soils at 1400 ft. elevation were  once an ancient seabed.  At its perch on the Southeastern end of a ridge the vineyard receives a bounty of sunlight and cooling air from San Pablo Bay.  The French clone 337 Cabernet Sauvignon is irrigated from a pond at the highest point in the vineyard which fills naturally with the winter rains. Irrigation is  gravity fed. The grapes here in this, the coolest of the Napa mountain appellations, mature slowly producing more and finer tannins.  From the highest block, renowned K1, a panoramic view from St.Helena to Carneros can be seen. Giant redwoods flourish in the canyons on either side of the vineyard. Located 2 miles from the nearest public road Konrad Vineyards' pristine environment consistently produces the highest quality inky, concentrated wines that Mt. Veeder is known for.

Next week I'll have Brix numbers.

8/13/13 Well Past the Mid Point. About 7 weeks to go or maybe a little less. Sorry it's been a long time since my last blog entry. I got my summer vacationing out of the way, a college trip with my daughter and a trip back to see the folks in Green Bay.

Fortunately there are no significant aberrations to report aside from a half acre fire I happend to drive by and was first to report. It occurred where Mt. Veeder Rd. meets Redwood Rd. on Sunday. Cal Fire put it out very quickly. The Lokoya volunteers didn't even get called up.

Temperatures have been very moderate the last two weeks with only 4 out of 14 days breaking 80F and only 2 days with fog. Awesome weather for grapes and humans. That seems to be coming to an end now with the high today reaching 89 and more heat forecast.

I believe the cool weather probably slowed down maturation some but, most people are still saying we are on course for harvest 1-2 weeks early. I took a couple of Brix readings at Camalie yesterday and got 19.6 Brix for the Merlot which is always a couple weeks ahead of the cab. A cab sample from Camalie Block 3 came in at 16.4 Brix. Doesn't seem like much ahead of schedule to me but, a more rigorous review of old data is really required, Still a little early to bother with regular Brix measurements, but another week or two and it will be time.

Here is a photo of something I saw yesterday which also suggests to me that we have a ways to go.

Still with 4 acres of vines I can always find something to photograph to "prove" a point. Here's a contrarian portrait from 15 rows uphill. Lighting has an effect too.

Below is a picture of fruit we dropped at Camalie last week to tighten up the ripeness distribution.

Below is a picture of my Merlot which has come up for sale again because Marketta won't be able to make wine this year due to a physical injury. 3/4 ton @$3700/ton.

The berry samples were small but better than single berry samples.

If you are feeling neglected because there are no photos of your block here, don't. I'll be getting more in the next week and posting. It will take me a while to catch up.

7/8/13 VERAISON BEGINNING:

Below is a photo from Crouse -Orleans block, only one vine in 100 showing any color so far.

Below is a picture from Konrad K6 showing that veraison is also evident there. In fact it is a little further along there, probably one vine in 20 is showing a colored bunch. Of course the big question is how does this compare to previous years. Looking back at last year's blog (2012) I read that veraison occurred in K6 around 7/21 which means that we are about 13 days or almost two weeks ahead of last year. This is consistent with the degree days data I have looked at as well. I have not seen significant veraison in any of the rest of Konrad's blocks or at Camalie yet.

If you go back another year to 2011, the year with the coldest start in the 13 year's I've been growing grapes, the note says that on 8/15/2011 K1 had just reached 40% veraison and was furthest ahead of any block. Even a conservative estimate puts us a month ahead of 2011. If climate change is creating more variance in the weather we have first hand evidence.

Dr. Pulido with his favorite fruit. He recently received his PhD. in viticulture from the University of Mt. Veeder. His thesis was something about cunihitos.

Note the jeweler's loupe around his neck which he uses to spot powdery mildew. To the right he didn't need the loupe to see this outbreak in K5. There are a few minor spots but, nothing that will affect yield significantly. We will drop all powdery mildew affected fruit ASAP. Ramon's aggressive leafing has helped greatly along with aggressive spraying. This shows it was all necessary.

Pretty picture from the meadow above K1 showing how we are out of the fog long before the valley. James is thinking about retiring should you be interested in this big piece of heaven.

Here's a less pretty picture of how the K1 sunburn damage is evolving. This fruit will be dropped pre harvest unless someone is curious to learn how wine made from toasted grapes tastes. I have to admit I am curious. I have not seen the scars this dark before. In one prior year we saw greenish penicillin mold attack the scar tissue particularly in one block after a heavy rain near harvest.

With the early heat this year our water situation is a source of concern. Konrad Vineyards' pond below is almost half gone and Crouse's reservoir is 80% depleted and we are only in early July which is normally only a few weeks into the irrigation season. Crouse still has 2/3 of its water supply left in a well if it performs like it did last year. Camalie is O.K. for the moment. Note James' 200 year old heritage Oak tree on the left of this photo and reflected in the pond.

I did some more bunch counting, this time at Camalie to estimate yield for our major buyer. Here's the raw data and an estimate:

Camalie: Bunch Counts/vine 7/8/13

Row 40 below house 25 bunches large

Row 39 below house 30 bunches large

Row 58/ 32 bunches small

Row 57/ 20 bunches small

Row 58 west end 34 bunches large

Row 58 Merlot 28 bunches medium size

Row ~18 above house 32 bunches medium

Row ~17 weaker vine 21 bunches small bunches

Row 10 top of vineyard 22 bunches.

Average: 27 bunches.

Assume 1/3 lb. /bunch = 9 lbs/vine. Assume 10% loss due to thinning for quality and better ripeness uniformity which means 8.1 lbs/vine. The vineyard has 954 vines/acre which puts the yield at ~3.8 tons/acre.

Figure 3770 bearing Cabernet Sauvignon vines at Camalie x 8.1 lbs/vine = 15.2 tons total.

Ramon's guy Miguel finished spraying Konrad Vineyards yesterday with Pristine for Powdery Mildew. The Powdery Mildew index actually went up yesterday inspite of the high temp probably due to a slow cool down.

6/28/13 RAIN 1" Monday 6/24 evening through midday Tuesday. This is quite unusual for us but, doesn't seem to be a problem. High temps Monday and Tuesday during the rains were below 65F followed by high eighties on Wednesday. Yesterday we had 92F at Camalie and 88F at Konrad. It feels like South Carolina. Looking at the soil moisture later I can see that it generally penetrated easily to 12" and some to 24".

Just before the rain Ramon's crew finished leafing and Ramon had made one pass spraying for mildew. With the rain washing off the protection he is back out again today spraying. Humidity is still up in the 60-70% range but the powdery mildew index is actually down to 50 with the low and high temps we've had over the last 4 days.

Below fernando is leafing the east side of K6.

I was concerned we might need to worry about botrytis but, Ramon says not to worry and James pointed out that Grapes in France get rain all season and don't generally have a botrytis problem pre veraison. We have seen no visual signs of powdery mildew or botrytis in any of the vineyards in spite of the heavier than usual crop load. (update: I did see a bunch or two with mildew in K1 this morning 6/28/13 walking the vineyard with Jeff Fontanella and Ramon) Ramon's leafing strategy helps significantly I'm sure if only to allow penetration of the spray.

Below is an image from Camalie Block 3 showing the leafing up close and the crop load. This picture makes me smile.

We were talking with Karen Crouse about her plans for her extra fruit. We agreed that at least some of it should be sold since she wants to limit the size of her wine program. If you are interested in some cab or Merlot from her vineyard do give me a call. 650-799-6571.

This rain has alleviated some of my concern about our water supply being able to last the season. Before the rain though I added a new pond level sensor to Dr. Konrad's pond (photo below) and replaced a leaking pipe coupler (photo below) in a Camalie Well.

Ramon has seen some color over at Rubbissow already and is forcasting veraison in two weeks or so.

6/15/13 The fruit set looks excellent. You should expect yields on the high end of the range this year. Here are some photos from the most recent week.

Below is K2U.

Below is the K2U row that the photo above came from. Vigor nicely under control here.

Below is Konrad's Malbec. It really wants to produce some fruit this year.

Below is the East side of K1. Good fruit set and nice uniformity.

Sunburn on the west side of K1. Unusual to see this so early. I have not seen this in any other block, all three vineyards.

Below is K5.

Below K5 vigor. Growth has slowed. with water stress as desired.

Below Camalie Block 3 Lower. Good crop, growth slowed.

Below Camalie Merlot, abundant crop as usual no fertilizer or water needed. I wish everything grew this easily.

Below Crouse Orleans block (6). Average bunch count on these big old vines planted only 500/acre = 42. Yield estimate currently double last year's yield of 1.6 tons/acre. Fertilizer, Irrigation, Ramon's pruning and good weather have combined to produce record yield at Crouse this year. We'll burn some significant portion of this yield dropping fruit to tighten up the ripeness distribution and select for sun exposure.

Yield estimation 6/14/13 in Orleans(6) and Royal(3). 

Orleans(6)
      Row 35    Vine 2      22  bunches
                       Vine 9      49  bunches
                       Vine 10    Pierce's disease one arm
                       Vine 16    52 bunches
                       Vine 21    40 bunches
     Row 16     Vine 4      41 bunches
                       Vine 20    49 bunches
                       Vine 43    44 bunches
                       Vine 67    arm missing
                       Vine 68    39 bunches
     Row 25     Vine 15    41 bunches
   Average                       41.8 bunches     x 1/3 lb./bunch = 13.9 lbs/vine x 500 vines/acre = 3.5 tons/acre. x 2.15 acres = 7.5 tons.

Royal(3)  
     Row 8       Vine 8       63 bunches     This is one old + one younger vine together
                       Vine 36     48 bunches   
    Average                       55 bunches    x 1/3 lb/bunch = 18.5 lbs/vine pair   x  530 vine pairs/acre = 4.9 tons/acre  x 1.36 acres = 6.6 tons
                                                                                                                      If Block 4 Bourbon yields similarly                  x .83 acres =   4.0 tons
This estimate shows 18 tons of fruit from just blocks 3,4 and 6. 
This estimate needs to be modified by several factors, first is vine count which needs to be reduced by around 10% for missing vines.
    It also needs to be reduced for the crop selection that will take place to improve quality via uniformity.  This could cut the yield by 10-50% depending on how selective you and Jeff want to be.   One can always trade yield for quality but, you have to have good yield.   That's what we have this year.

Below Crouse Dumaine (5cab). Reddish volcanic Soil.

Below Crouse Dumaine (5 cab)

A review of the degree days data shows that we are about 2.5 weeks ahead of last year in terms of Temp+Sun in the range where grapevine metabolism operates. This bodes well for ripening all the fruit even if the crop load is high.

The vine growth(vigor) has been slowed sufficiently using water stress. Irrigation has been initiated. Baseline irrigation programmed into timers. 2-3 events/week, 2 gal./week total.

The detailed timer schedules are shown below. My cadre of 15 little computer timers take care of these irrigations. I just look at the water meter, manifold pressure and soil moisture trends from the comfort of my office to make sure they are doing their job. Irrigation at Camalie is done on a more adhoc basis since I am there most often and because I have full remote cell phone control of the valves at Camalie.

Note: You are welcome to look at the Irrigation/Weather Dashboards I am using if you like. Username: user Password: camalie

Crouse DashBoard

Konrad DashBoard

Camalie DashBoard

Timers installed at Crouse enabling multiple late night, low evaporation irrigations per week rather than 4-5 daytime irrigations total over the whole season.

New timer valves on blocks Royal(3) and Bourbon(4) at Crouse Vineyards.

I took a buyer out to Crouse Bachus block only to find that there was no fruit on the vines. We walked 100 ft. down the row and I swear we couldn't find a single full bunch. Very embarrassing. This was not a big surprise since last winter we pruned the vines back to the cordon spurs after 3 years of no pruning, removing all of last years wood which was at least several ft. away from the cordon. The surprise for me was that the absence of grapes was so complete. Making it even more profound was the contrast provided by one row that Karen's renter had pruned the year before hoping to do a little home winemaking with grapes from this one row. His pruning produced growth last year directly from the spurs. In this row the fruit set this year is great with big bunches, two or more per shoot as you would expect.

5/5/13 BLOOM!

Block 6 at Crouse Vineyards above.

Block K5L at Konrad's where bloom also seen. Both photos from 5/4/13. M.H.

Shoot lengths are already 3-4 ft. and we are seeing 10-20% bloom in some blocks. Block 6 at Crouse, Block K5 and upper K3,4 at Konrad are showing some bloom but none so far at Camalie. What a crazy ride so far and it's only the first week of May. The vines are off to an early start, the opposite of 2010 and 2011. The warm weather, the soil moisture still ample, shoot selection/suckering done and a fertigation at the perfect time have all contributed to rapid growth ahead of schedule this year.

I have already irrigated Crouse Block 3, Konrad K1 and Camalie C3 lower with about 1-2 gallons as the soils have dried out significantly with the low humidity Santa Ana winds. "Normally" I don't start my irrigations until mid June. As I am writing this the weather has changed to abruptly cooler today. We can use the break but, warmer is better during bloom to get a good fruit set.

Ramon took advantage of the lull in the winds the last couple mornings to do wettable sulfur applications. The powdery mildew index has reached its max at 100. No visible outbreaks. He also included in the spray, Boron and Zinc to address trace mineral deficiencies and maximize fruit set.

Since my last report Ramon has also done a full pass of shoot selection and suckering in all three vineyards. He likes to have the vines putting all their energy as early as possible into shoots and flowers that will end up producing prime fruit at the end of the season.

Above is a picture from Block 3 in the 'bowl" at Crouse Vineyards. With input from Jeff Fontanella we will be running a two row test of a modification to Karen's California sprawl trellising here. The general idea is to provide some support for th shoots to grow vertically up from the fruiting zone an extra 12-18" to give the fruit a little more coverage against sunburn.

Miscellaneous challenges I've had to deal with include worn out rechargeable batteries in the wireless monitoring system and the ongoing leakage from the Crouse pond which is more than I expected. Another 50K gallons has disappeared in the last 2 weeks. At this rate not much will be left by the time we start irrigating in earnest in June. I'm reluctant to put it on the vineyard now as it will only encourge the vines to be more vigorous and need more water for their larger canopies later. It we are going to have to budget water carefully it is better to start sooner rather than later. The good news is that the clay like soil in block 1 on the lower half of the hill is still saturated, which reminds me that one of my other ongoing projects is the sale of those grapes. Lots of inquiries but, only one near sale. Home winemakers are a little skittish about paying $5K/ton for their hobby. The best candidates are assistent winemakers breaking out on their own with a new label.

4/17/13 All fertigations have been completed. It took 5 days to get them all done. Calcint 15-0-0 fertilizer was used as a source of Nitrogen with no impact on the soil acidity. See doses in the table below.

We have had cool and windy weather but, the sun has been out everyday the last week. At the top of Crouse B7 I was dodging pine cones as I was almost blown off of the hilltop. I looked for damage to the shoots but, couldn't find any. The vines are growing quickly now with some shoots a foot long in the Crouse Cabernet Sauvignon and the Camalie Merlot not to mention the Konrad Malbec. Below is a picture looking over the Cabernet Sauvignon in Konrad block K5.

Ramon has sprayed stylet oil on Camalie and Konrad and is waiting for another break in the wind to do Crouse.

This is a picture of Miguel spraying on 4/13/13.

With three blocks at Crouse listed for sale on WineBusiness.com there have been lots of inquiries and now 3 visits to the vineyard. Grapes Available

4/4/13 Below is this year's Spring fertigation plan. Please take a look at the dose for your block if you have issue with it please give me a call. 650-799-6571. We'll begin the fertigations after the rain stops. We have about 0.7" so far in the latest storm but, it is still coming down steadily.

The basis for doing the fertigations this early in the season is research by Prof. Dave Smart at the Oakville station where they put cameras in clear tubes in the root zone and observed root growth of Cabernet Sauvignon. They found that root growth is maximum when the shoot growth is maximum, which is maximum in the early season. This is somewhat of a pain because it means you have to pressurize your irrigation system 3 months ahead of when you would normally be starting it up to do irrigation. As a result I think many convenient theories of best fertigation time have arisen which call for fertigation later in the season. I have enough of my compensation connected to yield and fruit quality that convenience is a secondary factor in my decision making.

We will do some petiole analysis later and make further adjustments as needed.

Ramon is also planning a spraying of Stylet Oil shortly.  An excellent description of all the options and recommendations for powedery mildew management is provided by UC Davis at http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r302100311.html

3/31/13 Some rain falling this weekend thankfully but only 0.2-0.5". Just a series of thunderstorms moving through. Here's a nice picture with the sun breaking through on the Camalie Merlot which is the furthest along of any of the fruit we are growing. The 3rd year Malbec over at Konrad is looking good too, on the right below. Still working on the fertigation plan. Showing Crouse block 1 tomorrow.

Installed visual tank fill level indicator on Crouse top tank. I was surprised I could buy Clear PVC that would glue just like the white stuff. Downside $3.50/ft.. Yes that's a fishing bobber. On the right is the new fangled approach which can be observed from any place on the planet with a web browser in addition to 20 ft. in front of the tank.

3/26/13 Greetings at Bud Break of the 2013 growing season! Two thousand twelve was a great year and we're hoping for an even better year this year.

Konrad Vineyards Block K6. We put about 200 9ft. stakes in this block to support a taller canopy and allow more light to get to the grapes in this, one of the more vigorous blocks at Konrad Vineyards. This was done at they buyer's request with the cost being shared between the buyer and Dr. Konrad.

You'll notice that I have changed the title of my blog and added another vineyard to the coverage. I am now a subcontractor with Pulido Vineyard Management (PVM). PVM has increased its vineyard management to 4 vineyards this year with this addition of Crouse Vineyards AKA Mount Veeder Magic Vineyards. Crouse Vineyards are located a half mile down the gravel road from Camalie where it joins with Mount Veeder Rd. Here's a picture of the lower half of the 15 acres of vines. About 2 tons of Cabernet Sauvignon from the lower half of this block is available this year for the first time in 3 years.

I'm currently reviewing the yields and prior years' petiole analyses of all the blocks to come up with a prescriptions for this Spring's fertigations. I'm also listening to buyer input. If you have input please send me e-mail at mholler@pacbell.net or call me. 650-799-6571. My yield target is 2.5-3.2 tons/acre.

Most of our grape contracts are now long term but, there are one or two that have expired and there is the new fruit at Crouse that I need to find buyers for. This is my other area of activity at the moment. If your contract needs renewal I'll be in touch.

Camalie/Konrad Grower's Blog 2012

Camalie Grower's Blog 2010, 2011

Konrad Grower's Blog 2011

Konrad Grower's Blog 2009, 2010

Home Pages: Camalie Konrad Crouse

All photography by Mark Holler. Copyright 2013

Last Updated 3/26/13 M.Holler