Simple Sangria

1 Bottle White Wine (Vignoles, Valle Rhine, Amoureux, or Vidal)
2/3 cup sugar
3 oranges sliced
1 lemon sliced
1 lime sliced
1/2 liter ginger ale or club soda

Pour the wine in the pitcher and squeeze the juice wedges from the fruit into the wine. Toss in the fruit wedges and add sugar. Chill overnight. Add the ginger ale or club soda just before serving using chilled wine and lots of ice.

Get Your Motor Running

As promised we are mechanically pruning this year. These pictures are very similar to pictures taken this time last year. Dad is driving the tractor all around the vineyard, back and forth, reaching both sides of every row of grapes, pruning, pruning, pruning. It is a gorgeous day here. Spring is fast approaching and there is much to do. After he finishes pruning, there is compost to scatter, and dormant spray to apply.

Check back again soon for more spring time vineyard happenings.

Last Day of Harvest

Today is the last day of harvest. We are picking Vidal today. We usually pick the Norton last, but the Vidal was taking it's own sweet time getting ripe this year. We also have a few Rougeon and Chambourcin hanging out there that will get picked today also.



This is a picture of the back of the harvestor. It goes over the row of grapes and shakes them with finger looking beaters, then conveyor belts move the grapes up and over; out the side arm and into the bins.

This is Rose standing on the wagon making sure the grapes go into the bin. It's not as easy as it looks, the harvestor and wagon go at different speeds, and the terrain is not totally level so the arm moves up and down as well as side to side.
This last picture is the Vidal blanc juice coming out of the press. It's a little green, but will clear up when we rack it tomorrow morning. All white grapes are green when pressed. It foams a little too.

Bad Hair Day

Vidal Blanc

Here is a picture of a bunch of Vidal bunches. =) It will be a couple weeks before we harvest these, but they do look scrumptious already.

Standing Guard

We are in the middle of harvest over here, and also in the middle of sweltering heat. We set two records in temperature this week, Tuesday at 104, and Wednesday at 105. Naturally those are the days we decide to pick grapes, namely the Vignoles. After all the frost this spring, and draught this summer, the fruit looks great, and the quantity is smaller than normal, but we'll take it! We also picked the Seyval blanc grapes today, so the tank room is full of fermenting white wines, yum!

This is another picture of another scarecrow. This one is minding the Vidal blanc grapes, who probably won't be ready for a couple weeks. As we pick more and more grapes, the wildlife seem to hone in on what's still out there to munch on. Hopefully this soldier is doing his part.

Damage Control?

On Friday, Keith Striegler, director of The Institute for Continental Climate Viticulture and Enology came out to survey the frost damage to the vines. Keith was one of my teachers and mentors from Fresno, and now he works for us here in Missouri. He cut into some buds with a razor blade to see if they were green in the middle, to see how much bud damage we had. If a vine looked really bad, he shaved a small piece of the bark to see green to tell if the vine was even still alive. The Concord and Vignoles are not good at being fruitful on secondary or tertiary buds, so if we get any crop on them it will be a miracle. The Norton and Vidal look about the same, with about 60% damage, and the Seyval is supposed to be one of the most fruitful on secondary and tertiary buds, so he thought we would get a full crop from those vines. He said a frost of this much devastation, from Oklahoma to North Carolina, has not been documented in 118 years.

The next 6 weeks are the most critical, to see what if anything comes back and buds and sets fruit. Our hearts are heavy, our babies are sick, and we will have to be patient for their recovery. As Keith says, "this is a learning experience."

This is a Vidal blanc grapevine at bud break.

Bird netting for a late harvest Vidal

This is a picture of our beloved harvestor picking the Vidal grapes.

Vidal grapes still on the vine

A very good point was made in that you don't know what our labels look like so you can buy them at your local store that will now be carrying our product. Here is what most of our labels look like.