Picking Riesling Today
We can rarely schedule Hardscrabble’s Riesling picking date. Once the grapes enter the window of ripeness they become highly susceptible to rot. Rot is triggered by rain. It rained yesterday. We pick today.
Read MorePatience Rewards
This past week’s weather has made for a remarkable turnaround in the flavors and concentration in the grapes. It’s the break we needed. The only small downside has been the recent hot afternoons. We have limited picking to the cooler morning hours. Coolness retains fresh aromatics and limits bitterness in the juice.
Read MoreFinally Off and Running
The waiting is over. The grapes took full advantage of a brilliant weekend. The soils are drying out. Leaves are soaking up the sun and photosynthesis is accelerating ripening. While we want the vines to take in the goodness of each sunny day, the picking line-up is growing and beginning to look intimidating. Time to start.
Read MoreCrush
Today is Linden’s first day of crush for vintage 2021. On the slate are Hardscrabble’s Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc. The season has presented a circuitous, twisted path to get to this point. A mid-summer drought followed by late summer cycles of brilliant sun and downpours.
Read MorePicking Decisions
Linden will start harvest later this week. Making this decision has been particularly difficult this year due to extreme fluctuations between drought and rain. The vines are confused. Lately the weather has settled down nicely. And we hope that continues.
Read MorePrepidation
Harvest is still weeks away, but recent rains have given us a reality check. We were enjoying a much drier than normal summer, but there were worries that the vines were becoming too water stressed. Some rain was desirable. Be careful what you wish for.
Read MoreBottling
Last week we bottled. It was wonderfully boring. A boring day is as good as it gets. There are lots of moving parts on our bottling line, and if one of those parts does not move the way it is supposed to move, our boring day becomes a stressful day.
Read MoreVeraison: The Beginning of Ripening
This week we saw the first berries turn color. This signals the beginning of ripening.
Read MoreWhat The Vines Tells Us
It has been many years since the vineyard has been this dry. The grass is browning, but the vines look good. Vines have deep roots and are still finding enough water in the subsoil.
Read MoreCluster thinning
It is very dry at Linden. Most of the vines are doing well given that their roots are deep and finding enough water in the subsoil. However some of the younger vines are starting to show signs of water stress. We’ve been weeding and mowing more frequently in order to reduce competition for moisture.
Read MoreLeaf-pulling Tools
For the past few weeks most of our days have been spent hand removing unwanted leaves and shoots in the cluster zone. Grapevines are trained so that all the clusters are uniformly in a line at the same level. At Linden this would be between 30” to 40” which correlates to tabletop to countertop height.
Read MoreGood Set
Grape flowering is over and it seems that we are looking at a potentially large crop. “Set” is the term we use for the percentage of grape flowers that are successfully pollinated and become developing berries.
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Canopy Work
We are now at the peak of canopy work in the vineyard. The task is repetitive in nature. One could make a comparison to a factory assembly line, but simply being outside negates that argument.
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Weeds or Native Cover Crops?
One very significant aspect of Hardscrabble Vineyard that has changed over the years is the vineyard floor. In the 1980s and 1990s we would keep the ground under the vines weed free. This allowed for good air flow. Additionally the lack of competition for water and nutrients resulted in very large, vigorous vines.
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Hot and Dry
It’s not been this dry this early since 2010. The soil is drying out quickly, especially with this heat and lower humidity. Thus far the impact has been positive. No disease pressure and slower growth of weeds and grass means that we can spend more of our time tending the vines.
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The Cicadas Aren’t Coming
Linden is in a different 17-year brood cycle. We last had them in 2013. 2030 is just around the corner.
Read MoreCool and Dry
May starts the busy season in the vines. However this has been an uncharacteristically relaxing week in the vineyard. Cool temperatures have slowed vine growth and a dry spell has kept grass and weed development at manageable levels.
Read MoreHail No
Yesterday evening we had hail. Hail is the the greatest fear of any winegrower. In five minutes it can turn a perfect season into a disaster. Hail is our unspeakable four-letter word.
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