The "Twin Vines" vineyard, the 2 acre block of "Meritage" or Bordeaux Red varietels we planted in 2003, is coming along nicely. We expect to pick our first harvest from this new vineyard this year (which is the third leaf for these vines). If only the rain would stop! Actually, it has been dry for a few weeks now, until yesterday when we had some rain along with very overcast skies. The weather forecast is predicting more rain this week, so we shall see.
The Twin Vines vineyard is planted on an 8x5 spacing and we are aiming for the "old world" style of "head-training" or "head-pruning". Actually, this term seems to mean different things to different people, but specifically, we do not have a trellis for these vines. Each vine has either a metal "t-stake" or a metal pencil rod for support, and the vines are "headed" at around 2.5 feet in height. We have left about 4 little "spurs", each with 2 buds, on each plant this year. We will not see fruit from all of these so-called spurs as we have been more concerned with getting the general "form" of the plants to be where we want it, so we may pick perhaps 1-2 tons of fruit this year (that will yield perhaps 2-4 barrels of wine, or 25-100 cases). The plan is to make a blend, though at this point we do not know whether we'll ferment together or separately. I'll post more on that later this year.
This site shows signs of being quite vigorous, being a sandy clay loam going down several feet. We planted closely partially because of the soils, but we'll see how things evolve. We do have drip irrigation in place too - we'd love to dry farm these vines but the temperatures here are probably a little on the warm side for that (though we did find moist soil at five feet when we did our soil testing - this at the end of September 2002, which I believe was a dry year).
The vineyard was pruned in March and only really began to bud out in the first couple of weeks of April. We have a mixture of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petite Verdot and Malbec. and so the different varietals will tend to bud out at different times. At this stage however, all of the plants have a couple of inches (at least) of growth, and things are looking good. These vines are all on 110-R rootstock, which is good for clay soil and also drought tolerant. Many of the vineyards in the San Antonio Valley are own-rooted (including the Merlot and Zinfandel vines from our current production), but we are happy so-far with the grafted stock.
The main vineyard cultural practice we have employed this year is mowing. Except, since we have had something like 30 inches of rain this year (typical is 10-12) it's been a case of mowing, mowing and more mowing. We use a rotary mower on the tractor to take out the middles of the rows, and then a weed whacker underneath and around the vines, followed by a grape hoe by hand. We have taken 2-3 feet of wild grasses, fiddleneck and more from the row middles in the worst (in terms of weeds - probably these areas have most available soil moisture) areas of the vineyard. And we have done that twice. The amount of rain this year has been quite amazing. The decision to mow rather than disc was made mainly due to the topology of the vineyard, which does tend to be subject some run-off from the hills to the north east of us - hopefully keeping the soil in cover will help with erosion control (which it definitely did this year, the year of the rains).
At this stage this year, we have not irrigated the vines. I would expect to do so some time in May, and we'll monitor the progress of the vines on a daily basis to make that determination.
Upcoming vineyard chores include a little more vine tying (to help the vines stay upright during the breezy afternoons we tend to get in the summer - especially when they are loaded with pound of grapes), a little more mowing around the vines at the east end of the vineyard (the worst of the grass and weeds was at the west end), and keeping on top of the rabbit and squirrel situation, not to mention the gophers. It looks like we'll probably have to use nets on these vines too, once the fruit starts to set. We have a quantity of birds around here that would make Hitchcock proud. Actually, I think the quail (armies of 'em) are good at this time of year (they eat lots of bugs) but their little birdy thoughts turn to grape dessert toward the end of summer (along with their blackbird and starling buddies) so hopefully the nets will do the job. I'm sure I'll be posting about this topic through the year. :)
Steve Wetherill
Escafeld VineyardsJolon, California
