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. The vines are still dormant. Nothing really happens until soil temperatures reach 50 degrees F., the magic number when the “sap rises.” Nothing in the vineyard is swelling, but I’ve seen a few trees starting to push.

The first half of February is pretty early for this kind of weather. We try to postpone pruning as long as possible because that delays bud break and lessens the chance of frost damage. The rains have given us nice cover crops, which, in turn, absorb the rainfall so that there isn’t much standing water. But Nabor and his team aren’t daunted by mud.

The cellar is buttoned up and Kenneth just left with his family for a well-deserved vacation in Mexico, near Cancun. Some wines are still finishing ML, or malolactic fermentation (conversion of stronger malic acid, found in apples, to weaker lactic acid, found in milk). While this winter has been moderate overall, there have been cold periods. Our late harvest put winemaking on a later schedule, including moving ML, which is temperature driven, into the colder months, further slowing it. But everything is proceeding nicely within an acceptable time frame.

Valentine’s Day is associated with the color red, but in the vineyards, there is a riot of yellow with the mustard out in abundance. I feel better just looking at it.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites