AMR: After a warm January and early suckering, we aren’t so early any more. The last three weeks of cool weather have really slowed the vines. I estimate that we have another two to three weeks until flowering, and mid-May is normal.

I should explain suckering. It means removing undesirable shoots from the vine, whether they are too small or in the wrong place. This practice takes its name from pulling off “ground suckers” or water sprouts on the rootstock. But because Pinot Noir likes to push out more than one shoot per bud, and sometimes three, we remove additional shoots to make sure the canopy has the potential to ripen the fruit. Pinot Noir requires more leaf surface to ripen a given quantity of fruit than other grape varieties. We need a certain caliber of shoot – it must be larger in diameter than a pencil and grow up … More…