It’s been raining off and on this week. We only have a day or two of pruning left, but we’re not working. The cover crops are so high and wet in the rows that we quickly get soaked to the waist, and that’s miserable.The rainfall has been pretty evenly distributed this winter. Although the soil is pretty saturated, the cover crops have done a good job absorbing excess moisture. We haven’t seen a cover crop of this size in years. The vigorous growth is welcome, because the roots penetrate the soil. When the roots die back, they leave room for oxygen and water to move down deep, and the plants also break down into fertilizer and organic matter in the soil.

The vines look relaxed, in great shape … More…

It’s Valentine’s Day, and we’ve received a wonderful valentine – over a week of beautiful weather, with highs reaching 70 and lows in the 30s.

Heavy rains have brought us close to 20 inches for the season, very near normal, which is slightly less than 22 through this month. By comparison, last year we had just over 11 inches to date.

I have been sidelined with the flu, which has seemed ironic during this past week of warm, sunny days. Nabor has been busy in the vineyard, and with dry weather forecast, he should finish pruning our home ranch, The Donum Estate, and nearby Ferguson Block by early next week. Then we start tying.

I’m on the mend, so we’ll head up to Nugent Vineyards next Saturday and start there. … More…

We had a beautiful Thanksgiving weekend, and a lot to give thanks for. We’ve had only a few days of showers post-harvest, just enough to turn the hills and cover crops in the vineyards a vibrant green in contrast to the few remaining yellow, brown and rust-colored leaves on the vines.

We followed a year of low rainfall with another relatively dry year. Lucky for us, we had neither a hot summer nor a heavy crop in 2007. Next spring, if the soil profile is not refilled naturally, we will irrigate. That’s where our neutron probes are very helpful, helping us to determine the extent of soil moisture and how much we need to add when the ground isn’t saturated.

Still, despite the many advantages of drip irrigation (low, precise and efficient … More…

We keep checking our refractometers (devices that measure sugar content by refraction of light) and comparing results, because nothing seems to be happening. But they all read the same.

The flavors are there now, in most cases. The seeds and skins are mature. All the numbers are good except the sugars are low. The canopies are nearing the end of their cycle, so we will have to pick soon.

This has been a dry year, so there should be less chance of mildew or botrytis mold. Yet I have seen more mildew than last year. This puzzles me, and I’m sure the guys from the universities are puzzled, too.

I’m noticing symptoms of leaf roll virus (margins of the leaf blade roll downward; areas between major veins turn red) quite a … More…

After a week of heat in the mid- to high-90s in Carneros, and 100-plus temperatures in Sonoma, I find it interesting that we haven’t picked very much, and we will probably wait until the week after next to harvest most of our crop.

Others have had to pick, but not us. Our sugars were at 21 to 22 degrees Brix (approximate percentage of sugar) when the heat came and now we’re at about 23. We saw a little bit of dehydration, but on the whole there weren’t huge shifts, the canopies are healthy and the fruit is beautiful. We walked our Russian River vineyard on Tuesday, and it looks wonderful, too. Our two Dijon Pinot Noir selections are holding nicely in the high 23 Brix range.

Nabor commented that when the fruit is at 21 to 22, it’s so healthy and intact that it can withstand heat, perhaps because the … More…