Journal | June 10, 2025

Vintage 2025: Back to Normal?

 In the last 30 days we have received 8” of rain.  Typically we would expect about 3”. For most growing seasons this would be cause for concern, but after two drought years we’ll take anything we can get. Weak vineyard blocks seem to be bouncing back. You can see it in the foliage color, internode length and shoot tip succulence. The grass is dark green. The cover crops are a bit out of control, sometimes reaching up to the vineyard’s fruiting wire. All the compost applied over the past two years is having a delayed effect. Will we now see a pendulum swing?

The rain and the resulting biomass explosion in both the vines and the vineyard floor have increased disease pressure. Bloom has just peaked and the developing clusters are now highly susceptible to the big three diseases: powdery mildew, downy mildew and black rot. We’ve started fruit zone aeration early this season.

The vines are trained in a way that all the clusters are located along the bottom wire (hence called the fruiting wire). At this time we are (sometimes literally) crawling up and down the rows removing trunk suckers (newly emerged shoots coming from older wood), laterals (secondary shoots emerging from primary shoots), and some leaves that would block air flow and spray coverage. This is a skilled task as one has to understand everything about the vines from pruning and training goals, to desired sun exposure on the clusters. It is especially critical in a wet growing season. All hands on deck.

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Linden Vineyards / Learn More / Latest at Linden | Hardscrabble Journal: June 10, 2025