... special Vine 1! Verasion is that point in a grape's life when it begins to ripen and change color. Now is a critical time in the plant. Irrigation is tricky for if the vine is over watered, the grapes themselves can plump up too much. Also, excess water can cause the vine to produce new shoots...

Week 3 of the "Vine Chronicles" was an exciting week. Not only was the Estate 25 years old but we had a great deal of temperature variation and some rain. Only .53 inch of rain and the temperature was 38 degrees this morning. Spring is still coming...

... consistent heat, we don't want the vine to have to struggle more than it has to, working to supply ... dropped to the ground, turning into compost. At this point, we are only dropping grapes on Vine 2. I also wanted to demonstrate the great disparity between the grapes themselves on one single vine ... and just how thin the cluster appears. Yet, only a few inches away and ON THE SAME VINE, are full...

I'll briefly show vine shots, but far more exciting happenings are afoot! Vine 2 is a long, thin shot this week to demonstrate our irrigation system. It is a drip system that slowly releases a trickle of water to the base of the vine (something not allowed in France). Since I normally take my photos late in the day, this was an oddity, having headed into the vineyards around lunchtime. Vine...

Now that our grapes are coming along on Vine 2, you can clearly see the signs of shatter. Now ... -- almost not enough to pay to have harvested or attempt to make wine from. Vine 1, as from Day One ... on this vine has negligable shatter. you can see in the clusters that the grapes are filling out...

... settled in. You can see from the long tendrils the vine arms are creating that we are getting stupendous growth. It is at this point the vine's life that we want to quell that type of growth. The vine would have the tendancy to expend all its energy into producing vines and leaves. We want its ... . The pruning machine drives down each row and shears off the vine arms that are protruding. What we end up...

Week 2 of "The Vine Chronicles " (March 13th through March 20th) started with some signs of budbreak early in the week and by the end of the week - about 3/4 of an inch of growth. It was a warm week to start and cooled dramatically for the past three days...

... on the grapes. I did not take a grape shot of Vine 2 as there is still no verasion there, but the gradual change on Vine 1 is evident...

... weeks away from harvesting. For the sake of the vine, you can see that the ground underneath Vine 2...

This is when it gets scary. Cold fog settled into the vineyards early in the morning and even when it finally blew away, only revealed a sky full of grey clouds. It was a day that invoked steaming bowls of soup and warm cups of tea. Technically speaking, fall is ...