Wines and Vines - Start to Finish

Looking forward to a productive 2012

2012-01-12T14:31:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

So far it's been one of the mildest winters I can remember. Very rarely has the temperature failed to be above freezing during the day and even the nights have been relatively warm. There's been no snow to speak of since the freak storm at the end of October. The warm weather is actually a concern for farmers in the area. The trees and vines aren't staying in a full hibernation state and some are even threatening to push buds. This is very dangerous as any sudden dip in temperature could have devastating consequences. Ideally, the temperatures would hover in the twenties during the day and the teens at night and stay relatively consistent until mid-spring.

Everything else is going fairly smoothly. I'm still waiting on any word about my licenses since I fixed a problem with the application in November. As soon as that comes through I'll be pushing to get a product made and packaged.

Hopefully this spring I'll be putting in a few more rows of cider trees and another small block of grapes, but we'll see how that pans out.

Giagantic Catchup Post

2011-10-19T13:08:00.003-04:00

Again I've been called out for not posting at all. In my defense I've started a hand-written journal to keep track of things which is much more convenient, but in the interest of having a public account of all the things, here's what's been up since March.

March, 2011

Pruning went along fairly normally. One of my college buddies who has some interest in the process (and had quite a bit of free time) stayed at my place for most of the month and helped prune. Late-march snows slowed the process a little, but early-April sun helped us catch back up. There is a low-lying area in the middle of the vinifera rows that took a much heavier hit from the winter cold. If this trend continues I'll have to replant that area with hybrids that can survive better.

Glynwood, an educational farm in Cold Springs, is putting together a "cultural exchange" between Hudson Valley hard cider producers and producers from Perche, France. The exchange would include a visit from the French producers as they tour the Hudson Valley, then an all-expense paid trip to Perche to visit their operations. After a visit from the Glynwood organizer, Sara Grady, I was asked to participate to which I graciously accepted.

April, 2011

Pruning continued and I finally got most of my paperwork in for my farm winery license application. The biggest hang-up (which would become a huge headache for more than 2 months) was my wine bond from Farm Family Insurance. After much hassle (not entirely their fault), I finally received the correct bond a few months later.

I was given another acre of land to plant grapes in a completely separate location from my other vines. It's a much warmer location (possibly the warmest on the farm), so I decided to plant my favorite grape (Riesling). Double-A was out of riesling vines because of my lateness in ordering, so I found the 400 vines I needed from Herman J Wiemer Vineyards on Senaca Lake. They produce one of my favorite Finger Lakes Rieslings, so I considered it a great purchase and even elected to buy their own clone.

I got the readings back from the Cornell temperature button in my vineyard that said the coldest the winter got was -10.3 degrees F which happened at 7:30am on January 24th. Sounds about right.

Lots of rain all month (which would become a trend all year). Ended the month with my herbicide spray.

May, 2011

Planted the new riesling block at a 6' x 12' spacing with 4 x 480' rows and 2 x 240' rows. I had originally planned it for 425 vines but knocked my order back to 400 after remeasuring. Turned out in the end the 425 would have been perfect as I came up 1/3 of a row short on vines.

Also planted 75 new cider apple trees- 3 varieties, 25 trees of each. Varieties: Esopus Spitzenberg, Smokehouse and Golden Russet. Planted them down near my other cider trees and left room for more next year.

June, 2011

Put Blue-X shelters on the riesling block with bamboo shoots. No trellising yet.

Started shoot-thinning the established vineyard to try to get ahead of the growth. All the rain has already made a huge mildew threat.

Visited Glynwood for a pre-exchange meeting and dinner to meet the other Hudson Valley participants and learn more about Glynwood and the program. The visit bumped my enthusiasm from "excited" to "very excited" about the trip. I don't know what I did in a previous life to have this kind of opportunity fall in my lap at such a perfect time, but I'll take the karma payoff!

More rain has really started to effect the whole farm. Fungicides are going to be vital for any sort of crop (and it was only JUNE!)

July, 2011

Already noticing some cluster rot- mostly on the Reliance seedless. Very few Japanese Beetles compared to the last few years.

The older cider trees are producing more this year, but in an attempt to encourage vegetative growth and prevent limb breaking I was forced to hand-thin some of the apples. The smaller varieties seem to have more fruit and tighter clusters of apples. Overall, the surviving trees have really sprung back to life this year, which is very encouraging considering I was doubtful any would survive 2 years ago. They are, however, in desperate need of trellising.

Grape variety round-up (7/27):
Cayuga White: At verasion, very heavy crop. Very pleased.
Noiret: Not at verasion with a fairly poor fruit-set. Disappointed.
Interlaken (seedless): Past verasion, spotty fruit-set, some botrytis with lots of morning glory and thistle weeds
Himrod (seedless): Past verasion, also spotty set, relatively non-vigorous vine growth
Reliance (seedless): Past verasion, large crop, very heavy vines, some botrytis
Cab Franc: At verasion, much better sized crop, small tight clusters, need to pull leaves
Chard: Lots of fruit, some rot, significantly less fruit in low-lying area

August, 2011

Business as usual until Hurricane Irene on 8/28. The storm dropped about 8-10" of rain in 12 hours! While all of our orchards and vineyards are well out of reach of flooding, the amount of rain is hell on disease management. Downy mildew was RAMPANT this year. The cider trees are in a very wet spot and the combination of lack of roots, wet soil and heavy wind actually tipped about 1/2 of the trees over. I went down after the storm and propped them back up with wooden boards, which worked fine.

September, 2011

Days after Irene, another storm pushed through and dumped four more days of heavy rain which returned the flood water right back up to where it was after Irene.

Picked Cayuga White early for use in a sparkling wine at only 16 brix. We left quite a bit of unripened fruit on the vines in hopes of returning in October for a 2nd picking. Final yield was 3175 lbs which was a 1300 lb increase from last year. Awesome.

We also picked Chardonnay early for champagne, also around 16 brix. Yields on that were still to be desired due to the winter injury, but we still got ~1350 lbs out of them- up from just 250 lbs last year. Cluster rot was a big issue and there has been some shoot damage and even death from powdery mildew. A lot of canopy has been lost.

I still haven't managed to get my trellising up in the riesling block because we've been so busy with other things. All the vines are laying on the ground, but hopefully will be ok until I can stand them up. Although, with all the rain, I'm very worried I might have screwed myself. It'll have to wait until after apple harvest when I can get some workers to help me.

October, 2011

Still more rain. Picked the Noiret on 10/18. Final yield was around 1800 lbs, up from 1/3 of a ton last year, however the 2009 planting was responsible for 1/2 of this year's crop. The newer vines has more clusters and less rot than the '08 planting. I attribute this to a sunnier spot and a thinner canopy. Also, about 1/4 - 1/3 of the clusters picked has to be left on the ground due to wide-spread botrytis and sour rot damage. It's been a miserable growing year and it'll be a relief to get the last of the fruit off the vines so I can reset, pummel the vines with fungicide to prevent the over-wintering spores and try again next year. If it's not one thing (cold), it's another (frost), or another (torrential rain).

On the 15th, the French group from Glynwood visited. I showed them around the farm, harping on our fresh produce business and our cider mill. They seemed less than impressed with everything but came alive when I took them to the cider apple block. They took great pleasure in tasting all the varieties and comparing them to their own trees back in France. They had questions as well as some great advice for me which was a very encouraging event. Overall the tour went well and I can't wait to visit their farms in France in November.

So anyway, that's the update for now. I had hoped to get my hard cider license in before September to capitalize on the large Pick-Your-Own crowds, but the lengthy application process had too many set-backs and it didn't happen in time. The application is currently pending, though, and I should have it within the next few weeks so I can begin production and have stuff to sell next year.

I encourage you to comment with thoughts or questions and I'll do my best to answer them. Thanks for reading!

Pleasantly Surprised

2011-03-09T10:36:00.002-05:00

I finally did some bud cutting today to gauge winter damage. I mentally prepared myself for the worst after those few really cold nights (-15 at one point) and was just hoping to get less than 50% mortality.

I didn't take as many cuttings as I should have and I can hear my statistics teachers screaming at me for my pitiful sample size, but the results I got were fairly consistent so I'm going to accept them and move on.

The pleasant surprise was that no variety had more than 30% bud mortality. Both hybrids were between 15 and 20% death, Cab Franc was about 30% death and Charddonay was the big surprise with only 17% death! These all fall within the 15-35% mortality range meaning I can figure on leaving 1/3 more buds than normal to compensate for loss throughout the vineyard.

I plan on starting dormant pruning early next week. Most, if not all of the snow should be gone by then and hopefully the ground will dry out a little too. It'll be nice to work outside again without 5 layers of clothing on to keep from freezing. I love spring.

More Vines

2011-02-16T09:36:00.004-05:00

My grandfather offered up another acre of land and despite it not being attached to my current planting, I jumped at the chance and took it. It's on a great spot- probably the warmest place on the farm. Great drainage, long rows and a great view.

I ordered 400 Riesling vines from Hermann J Weimer Vineyard on Seneca lake- their own HJW clone, even. They're a little bit pricier than Double A (understandably), but by the time I was ordering Double A was out of the clone and rootstocks I wanted.

We've had some pretty cold temperatures in the past few weeks, so I've been kind of worried about the vines and buds surviving. The snow cover should be protecting the graft unions well enough, but if all the buds are dead it won't be a fun spring.

There was a great piece included in the most recent CALS newsletter on grape vine cold hardiness. It gives a great, easy-to-understand explanation of how grape vines naturally adjust to survive through the coldest parts of winter. If you have a minute it's definitely worth the read:

http://author.cals.cornell.edu/cals/grapesandwine/appellation-cornell/issue-5/grapes-101.cfm

Happy New Year

2011-01-18T11:06:00.003-05:00

I've become really bad about updating this, but here's what's been going on.

Despite numerous attempts, I never actually got my woodchip cover on the vines. Hopefully the snow we've gotten will provide enough insulation for the winter. We've already had a few nights that dipped below 0, but nothing SUPER cold yet. Probably a little bud death, but that's expected.

The biggest step I've made is that I've finally established my LLC. As of January 1st, I became the founder and president of Kettleborough Cider House, LLC. This obviously follows my plan of starting off making strictly hard cider until I have the resources to make wine. The name "Kettleborough" was my Dad's idea and refers to the original name of the settlement between New Paltz and Gardiner- right where our farm is located. I liked it because of the uniqueness as well as the historical significance. I think it'll do well for us. If you're really ambitious you can "Like" the business on facebook. Just search for Kettleborough Cider House.

I've ordered a 300 gallon plastic fermentation tank from Flextank which should be arriving in the next couple weeks. The plan is to start applying for my winery license and hopefully have everything in line to open a small tasting room during the fall pick-your-own apple season.

This spring I will also be planting 75 more cider apple trees. Three varieties, 25 trees of each of Smokehouse, Golden Russet and Esopus Spitzenberg. My grandfather actually ordered them for me without asking, so I think he's embracing the fact that I'm sticking with apples in this sense. Now if I can just convince him to push out some more Rome trees and get more Northern Spy in the ground I'll be very happy.

One last thing- back in December I paid a visit to Whitecliff with a friend from out of town and Mike took us to the barrel room to try a few of his wines he's working on, including the Noiret juice from my grapes. It was a really cool experience to finally see some results from all the work I've put in so far. And to have my name on a barrel was awesome.

Harvest Records

2010-11-01T13:35:00.002-04:00

The fall has been a busy one and unfortunately the grapes are still very much an afterthought behind the apple crop.

The great spring and summer growing season was framed by a devastating frost on Mother's Day and a damaging hail storm on September 9th. The frost killed most of the primary buds/shoots meaning most of the fruit grown was done so on secondary shoots. For this reason the yields were very shy of projected numbers. Whitecliff Vineyards did end up buying 100% of the fruit I picked which worked out very well for both of us, it seems, so a big thanks to them.

Final harvest weights:
Chardonnay: 0.13 tons
Cayuga White: 0.94 tons
Cabernet Franc: 0.10 tons
Noiret: 0.33 tons

The Noiret was the most disappointing. The canopies were very vigorous and seemed like they should produce a relatively large crop however the fruit was sparse and the clusters that did grow were very loose and light. Without the frost these yields would have been three or four times what they actually were. Next year I hope to have significantly more fruit, especially in the vinifera.

The good news currently is that the foliage is hanging on very well and the canes are hardening up much better than they did last year. Hopefully this means they will have especially good winter hardiness this year. Still, the next few weeks bring the usual winter preparation- hilling up (or in my case woodchipping), mowing, mouse poison, etc.

Harvest

2010-08-24T16:39:00.003-04:00

I got a new toy for the vineyard:

In lieu of a tractor-mounted deleafer, I opted for this much cheaper alternative- a Stihl industrial-grade hedge trimmer. It worked almost better than expected and cut through the excess canopy like butter. I only really needed it for the Noiret this year, but I can definitely see it coming in handy for some seedless varieties and maybe the vinifera when they're older. It's a beast of a machine and definitely eliminates the need to go to the gym the day you use it. It also managed to give me poison ivy on pretty much any exposed skin- including my neck and face. But what's the fun of being a farmer without having stuff like this involved in the job?

All the vines are in good shape, it seems, and I've already picked most of the seedless table grapes for sale at the roadstand. The Interlaken haven't produced hardly anything this year, which I blame on the severe winter damage they sustained their first winter; I'm figuring it put them a year behind schedule. The Himrod and especially the Reliance had a great crop considering it's only their 3rd leaf. I spot-picked on about the 13th of August and got about 50 lbs- most of which was reliance. I went back in on the 16th and got at least that much again, split about 1/2 and 1/2 between Reliance and Himrod, which also cleaned out the 50 Himrod vines.

I had been told by someone (after I had already planted) that Reliance tends to split very easily, especially if it rains. Well, I went away for 3 days and while I when I got back all the clusters I left on the Reliance had splits in them- covered in ants and bees and totally unpickable. Crap. Lesson learned the hard way- again.

The good news is that the wine grapes all seem to be coming along nicely and I did get a buyer for the whole lot this year. There's a GREAT crop of Cayuga White. The Noiret has plenty of clusters, but they're pretty thin because of the frost damage, I suspect. The vinifera are both kind of sparse, but they're making good sugars. Here's the Brix readings I got as of noon today:

Cab Franc: ~15-16% Brix
Noiret: ~16-17% Brix
Cayuga White: ~19% Brix
Chard: ~18% Brix

Harvest for the whites should be around the second week in September. We were going to harvest the Chard early to put in a sparkling wine, but spray schedules conflicted and we were forced to push it back to a later date.

I haven't posted many pictures this year, so here's a few to catch up:

New Layout

2010-06-28T13:57:00.002-04:00

Blogger now has a bunch of crazy template options I just fooled around with a little. I'm not sure I like it. It's a little busy.

As far as real news there's very little. Canopy management, mowing and spraying never end. Looking like an OK crop considering the frost.

Comeback of the century

2010-06-15T10:11:00.002-04:00

Ok, maybe not the century, but looking at the vineyard today you wouldn't believe they looked like they did in the previous post. Vigor is way up and I'm full-throttle with shoot thinning. I've also been keeping up with spraying and mowing and it looks like the crop may actually be significant on some varieties. Maybe I'll actually be able to write in some black in this year!

Pictures to follow when I remember to bring my camera out.

"Ouch"

2010-05-14T16:48:00.003-04:00

That's frost damage, kids. The first 4 are the vinifera vines which, having the least amount of foliage, look like they got hit the worst. The last one is Noiret which, despite looking a little nicer, had all its clusters exposed which got fried.

The good news is that the foliage SHOULD continue to grow and hopefully some secondary clusters will have survived and still get me a few grapes. It's hard to tell if the irrigation (picture below) had any effect. I like to think it did, but so much got hurt the night before it might have just saved leaves. It's just depressing to be in the vineyard right now, especially in the vinifera. *sigh*

2010-04-27T14:20:00.002-04:00

I finished pruning a few weeks ago. Anything done by hand to individual vines (pruning, thinning, etc) always seems like such a daunting, endless task but when you finally get through all of them it's a great feeling.

Since then I've put on my first fungicide spray to try to get ahead of disease. The downy mildew last year hurt a lot of vines and if I'm going to get a crop off this year I need to stay on top of it. I also did a herbicide spray under the vines. Roundup takes 1-2 weeks to show any effect, so it's just now looking like it's working.

The Interlaken and Noiret are at a little more than 1" green. The Cayuga White is just about 1", while the Chardonnay is just behind that. The Cab Franc and other seedless are just starting to get through bud break. It's nerve racking waiting on later varieties, especially when I look around at all the apple trees already at petal drop.

No pictures today, but I'll snap a few next time I have my camera with me.

Cider Apple Update

2010-03-31T15:12:00.004-04:00

Third post today. I'm on a roll. I got down to my apple trees today to check and see how many survived. To my delight it turns out that most of them are showing at least some sign of life. Here's some pictures I snapped. (Note: I'm still learning to use this camera, but I managed to get some pretty awesome shots, I think)

The cider apple block. Still need to run trellis wires and prop some of the trees that tipped over.

A shot down the two long rows. I'm amazed the difference in soil and its effect on moisture. Looking down the right row there's a definitive line in the dirt.

The northeast corner- easily the wettest spot. (I don't know why this is underlined and I can't change it)

I figured out how to do awesome close-ups with my camera. This picture is worth enlarging if it kept the resolution. Just showing some of the buds that will (hopefully) bloom this year and give me some fruit.

A tree.

Another cool picture if the resolution is high. This is one of the varieties that is doing rather well, as you can see from the year-old wood in the shot.

The variety that seems to be doing the poorest. I can't tell why. It's in the middle of a row with trees doing fine on either side. Maybe we were more harsh with these transplanting or maybe the variety just doesn't like change. I couldn't really pronounce the name anyway, so maybe it's a good thing won't have to talk about it.

Important Legislative Stuff

2010-03-31T14:26:00.003-04:00

New York State is obviously not doing so well budget-wise and Patterson has decided to be the fall-guy (since there's no way he'd ever get re-elected) and cut EVERYTHING out of the budget. He's got one or two good ideas and some really really bad ones.

Of course, as in all cases like this, if there's any grease to be given it goes to the squeakiest wheels. So if you care about the New York State Wine & Grape Foundation (which, if you're reading this, I hope you do), please take 2 minutes to e-lobby this budget issue to our assemblymen:

http://capwiz.com/nyfb/issues/alert/?alertid=14681266

Also, pretty much any Farm Bureau lobby issue is worth a look:

http://capwiz.com/nyfb/state/main/?state=NY

They do so much for agriculture it's not even funny. So maybe take a few minutes to look over their other e-lobby issues and definitely send in any and all you find appropriate. Thanks.

Spring!

2010-03-31T11:26:00.000-04:00

The weather is about 2 weeks ahead of itself as far as temperature and rainfall, meaning all the vines (and apple trees) are also 2 weeks early coming out of dormancy. This sucks for a couple reasons. 1) Despite being on schedule pruning (ok, maybe a few days behind), I'm now LATE as far as the vines are concerned. 2) I'm also being pressed to spray already but can't until I'm done pruning. 3) Being out of dormancy means the vines are more susceptible to damage from frost which is much more likely early in the season.

I've pruned all of my older Noiret vines and started on the Cayuga White. Thanks to rain, a busy time around the farm and Cornell getting into the Sweet 16 game of the NCAA tournament in Syracuse I haven't made any progress since Thursday. The rest of the week is supposed to be gorgeous so hopefully I'll get most of the time to get into the vineyard. As usual, any help is welcome, even if it's just an hour or two.

Spring?

2010-03-12T10:06:00.002-05:00

Temps are up in the mid-50's, the sun's been shining and I even had my hammock out last weekend. I'm sure it's all a big tease and we'll get another foot of snow next week, but for now I'm enjoying it.

I started pruning hybrids this week- mainly Noiret which I have the most confidence has survived the winter cold. When it warms up a little more I'll cut some buds on the vinifera and seedless to gauge winter kill and adjust pruning accordingly.

It's the first year I'm pruning with fruiting zones in mind since I'm actually (finally) planning to get some sort of crop off the vines. It's nice to prune and have the vines take a regular shape, rather than cutting them down to just a trunk. The Noiret are on Scott Henry trellis, so I'm kind of teaching myself as I go and it's been a little slow, but I've done about 100 vines and it's starting to become more routine.

I didn't bring my camera out this week, but I'll try to remember next time after this rain is over.

2010-03-01T13:14:00.002-05:00

So we're buried in snow now, just like anyone else in the northeast. Luckily, the temperatures haven't been in the kill-zone at all (*knock on wood*). Hopefully that one cold snap back in December was the worst we'll see.

On the business side of things, I attended Viticulture 2010 last week in Rochester. The conference was an impressive one- 3 days of lectures and a huge trade show. A few hundred growers, winemakers, sellers and vendors showed up. The lectures were good, for the most part, but the real advantage to going was simply getting face time within the NY Wine community. I made a few good connections and met some interesting people. Not to mention more free wine than I needed to drink. By the end of the week I didn't want to LOOK at a grape product. I was disappointed in the lack of representation from the Hudson Valley as there were only 3 of us who made it- 2 growers and one CCE rep.

It's officially March which means pruning. I'll probably start in about 2 weeks. I know a few people have offered their time in the past, so if anyone wants to lend some free labor I'd be happy to accept. No previous experience necessary...I'll teach you.

Seasonal Changes

2010-02-10T14:25:00.002-05:00

If you're reading this on the actual site and not through a feed, you'll notice a layout change again. I realize it's a little far into the season, but I'm going to try to do similar changes every couple months or so to try to reflect the physical status of the vineyard. This would be winter. I was kind of waiting for a nicer snow fall instead of showing the dead, dry ground we've had for the past month. Anyway, I hope you like it.

Summing up 3 months in a few paragraphs

2010-01-25T11:56:00.002-05:00

I realized today that it's been a very long time since I updated. Really it's because nothing much goes on in the winter, but here's what I've been up to since harvest ended.

I got enough grapes off the stronger vines to taste-test a couple clusters from most of the varieties. It's amazing comparing the berry sizes between vinifera and hybrids. Cayuga White grapes are almost 4 times the size of Chardonnay.

In December I did the wood chip thing again to cover the graft unions. It took about 5 dumptruck loads to cover them all and we dug a nice rut down the rows because of how wet the ground was.

I really haven't even been up there since Christmas. We're on a heat wave this week (55 degrees and raining right now), and I'm hoping it doesn't start to trick the vines into thinking it's spring already. That's the best way to lose 100% of your vines real quick.

On a different note, my mom's birthday is December 1st and I got her a pair of tickets for the Shawangunk Wine Trail's Christmas Wreath event. I acted as DD for her and my father and we made it to five wineries: Applewood, Brotherhood, Benmarl, Stoutridge and Whitecliff. I had been to all of them before, but it was a good learning experience for my parents who are just starting to take more of an interest in wine and the local industry. I heard a lot of good things and enjoyed it for the most part, excluding one stop where I was deeply disappointed with what we were being told, but that's not a good thing to talk about here. Whitecliff earned the "Best Stop" award from all three of us. Not only are Mike and Yancy two of the nicest people I know, but their wines stand out as exceptional in a region that has been so satisfied with mediocrity for so long. You can tell they really care about what they do and it comes out in their wine.

Next steps will be pruning, but that won't be for at least a month. I won't be planting any new vines this summer, but I've been told I can have the land just up the hill from my current vines. It was a peach orchard that was pushed out this fall. My grandfather says once he gets a year or two of strawberries out of it I can have it for grapes.

If we get a nice day I'll try out my new camera and post some new pictures.

Apples, Hail, Hard Cider and Winter Prep

2009-10-26T11:36:00.004-04:00

The apple season is almost over (finally!) so I'm slowly getting more time to focus on things other than post-harvest apple handling.

I got over to check on my cider apple trees about a week ago. They're pretty sad-looking, to be honest, but apparently that's what they usually look like. Some produced fruit this year, but most of it was on the ground before I even got there. I'm crossing my fingers that the ones that aren't dead are strong enough to survive the winter.

As far as hard cider goes, I finally made a batch that doesn't suck. It's nothing special, but at least it's drinkable. It's made of 100% Honeycrisp juice, which isn't something I'll be using again in the future. Single-variety ciders are usually pretty bland, and this one is no exception. I'm looking forward to getting some Northern Spy juice.

The grapes are looking good. The two frosts we've had have turned all the leaves brown. The canes are firming up nicely for the cold. I'll be covering the grafts with woodchips again, but I've got time before that needs to be done. As for next year, I'm working on finding more land to plant on. I'm hoping for at least another 2 acres and planning on putting in quite a bit of Vidal.

Hail has been a big problem in the area this year. My grapes, along with a majority of the farm's apple trees, avoided most of the hail. However, many growers around the region suffered major crop damage. We had some hit the smaller portion of our farm. After picking for about a week, we decided to abandon all the hail-hit apples and leave them on the tree, simply because they aren't worth enough to pay the workers to pick them.
So trees that look like this:

are being ignored because of 45 seconds of hail back in June. Just more proof that farmers are completely at the mercy of Mother Nature.

2009-10-01T08:14:00.002-04:00

I've been not-so-subtly called out on not updating in a long time. My excuse is my absurd work schedule due to apple harvest. I haven't even SEEN my grapes in about 2 weeks. But anyway, here's the last few months in a nutshell:

It finally eased up on the rain in August, but not before infecting the whole area with debilitating downy mildew. The few fungicide sprays I applied kept the vines alive, but they're not pretty to look at. The vinifera vines look like someone lit the vineyard on fire- most of the leaves are a rusty brown color and very sickly-looking. The vines themselves seem healthy enough, but the foliage and any grapes I might have left on the vines are not in a good way. Luckily I was never planning on harvesting a crop this year. The hybrids look like nothing ever happened. They're still as vigorous and green as ever. Plant genetisists know what they're doing.

At some point I put up a new set of catch wires for the VSP and Scott Henry systems. I don't remember exactly when that was, but it's not that interesting anyway, so we'll move on.

A woodchuck made its home in the top row of chardonnay and destroyed two vines in the process. I will have my vengence- in this life or the next.

When I was thinning, I left a cluster or two on some of the healthier vines. Before apples set in I picked a few just to try. Not enough to make any significant quantity of juice, but a handful just to show that yes, this investment will eventually produce something worth while. I'm excited for next year when the vines will be trained correctly and look like the text books tell me they're supposed to and I don't have to worry about dropping fruit for the benefit of the plant. I'm also more excited about the promise of seedless grapes than I thought I would be. I guess that goes along with my instant gratification mentality- pick it and eat it. Don't worry about the long winemaking process before you enjoy the fruit of your labor.

In winemaking news, I'm still making hard cider in carboys in my basement. I seem to be improving with every batch, and I think I'm zeroing in on the desireable recipe. One setback- I broke my hydrometer, so until I get a new one I'm kind of working blindly with sweetness.

I can't think of anything else of interest. When apples are done and I'm bored again, I'll be updating a lot more regularly. Stay tuned, as they say.

More Rain

2009-08-03T09:09:00.002-04:00

Over the past month, this happened:
-Finally finished shoot-thinning the whole block
-Broke and fixed a mower, then broke and fixed a tractor while mowing (long story)
-The Japanese Beetle invasion finally hit and needed to be sprayed.
-It has rained nearly every day of the month. Because of this, and because I haven't been using much fungicide, I now have downy mildew. If I was planning on picking a crop, I would have had to been spraying a lot more to prevent this.
-On the bright side, all the rain means we don't have to irrigate.
-I've been battling weeds pretty much everywhere, but more so in my new Noiret planting. I'll be finally putting in a cover seeding this week, if it ever stops raining long enough for the mud to turn back into dirt.

Rain

2009-07-02T08:29:00.006-04:00

I realize I've been slacking with posts for a while. Sadly, there isn't a lot to talk about from this past month.

Today, it's raining again. FML.

At the point, the rain has become almost comical. New York City reported that of the 30 days in the month of June, 26 of them had measurable rainfall. That's way too much rain. Not only does it prevent a lot of work outside, but it's an easy way to get mold, mildew, rot and disease throughout your fields.

I've been slowly pecking away at shoot thinning when the sun peaks out (or just when the rain stops), but it's slow-going and I'm less than halfway done. I took some helpers with me one afternoon and taught them quickly what I'm trying to do and we made OK time, but usually when I need help, all the help on the farm is catching up doing other things that need to be done.

On a positive note, there's been a lot of great vine growth. The land they're on is proving its great drainage capabilities and the vines seem to be doing great. Even a lot of the Interlaken that I presumed dead have sprouted again and are making a comeback.

About this time last year is when the Japanese Beetle invasion started. I hadn't seen one until two days ago when I saw just one on a leaf. Last week I put on a much-needed fungicide spray to protect against mildew and rot, but I added some insecticide to try to keep ahead of the beetles. When you're not planning on harvesting a crop, you're usually not under too much pressure to spray. However, with all the wet weather, I'll probably have to put on at least one more fungicide spray just to keep the vines healthy. I'm sure that'll tie in with another hit of insecticide when the Japanese Beetles are in full swing.

This is a picture of the shoot thinning I'm doing in the Noiret. The training system I'm using is Scott Henry- notice the two-wire system. Ideally, the top-wire vine will always go left and grow shoots upwards and the bottom will go right and grow shoots downwards, so vines are basically stacked on top of eachother...kinda like the "z" blocks in Tetris. (I just thought of that Tetris reference right now and I'm kind of impressed with it)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Also notice how much I'm removing from each vine.

Same shot, up close.

High-wire thinning. A thinned vine on the left, unthinned on the right.

I've got my work cut out for me...

The first Japanese Beetle of the season.

Frost

2009-05-20T11:25:00.002-04:00

The forecast for Monday for the area was a low of 38 with a freeze warning in effect. I spent a few hours of my evening helping get wind machines ready in the coldest parts of the orchard to help with the possibility of frost. Turns out temperatures dropped to as low as 26 in some places and frost was extensive. My grapes, indeed, took a hit.

I took a ride there today to assess the damage. Turns out it wasn't as bad as I was bracing for. The hybrids seem to have escaped virtually unscathed. The north end of the vineyard (the seedless and vinifera) did show significant burn on the top and outer-most leaves, but there's plenty of green tissue that was unharmed to keep the vines alive.

So, while it could have been much better, it also could have been much worse. I'm going to be tying the vines to the wires today, so I'll bring my camera to bring back some pictures.

Shameless Plug

2009-05-11T16:43:00.003-04:00

Nothing really to do with wines or vines, but the Dressel Farms Ice Cream Stand is open for business for the season! Stop in and get a cone!

Check out www.dresselfarms.com for more information.

May Pictures

2009-05-11T13:45:00.004-04:00

It's a nice day out and I needed to do some scouting, so I took my camera along with me. Here's a little bit of what I got (in case you didn't already know, these are all clickable if you want to see them blown up):

Looking north in the vinifera. The herbicide strip and fresh mowing make it look presentable.

Looking south at the Noiret.

A close-up of the new shoots on a Noiret vine.

This is a Cabernet Franc vine. Notice the lack of shoot growth due to winter kill. This is why I covered the bases of the vines over the winter- so those few green shoots could grow from the bottom and replace the dead vine.

One of my newly-planted Noiret.

It's a little hard to tell, but what I tried to capture with this picture is the completely healthy, vigorous vine right next to two totally dead ones. This is in my Interlaken row, which seems to have suffered about 50% vine death over the winter- the most of any variety from what I can tell.

Year 2 is officially here

2009-05-08T14:01:00.002-04:00

I guess I should give a quick update since it's been a while.

Over the past month, not a whole lot has happened. The most work I've done is weed control- spraying herbicide under the vines to kill the grass and weeds, as well as taking the mower through the rows. This serves two purposes- 1) the vineyard looks a lot nicer and 2) preventing competition between the vines and the weeds, allowing the vines to grow uninhibited.

Shortly, I'll be getting some fungicide on. All this wet weather has not only prevented a lot of outdoor work, but also opened the door for disease (rot, mildew, etc).

Shoot growth is at about 3-5 inches, as of yesterday. I don't have any pictures right now, so use your imagination. There are a few vines that have yet to show any activity. Keep your fingers crossed for them, but overall, so far so good.

Tired...

2009-04-16T18:56:00.003-04:00

Big productivity in the vineyard this afternoon. Not only did I finish up the last of the pruning, but we also managed to get all of the new Noiret vines planted, which included measuring, flagging, hooking, digging and planting. All in less than 3 hours. Not too shabby.

Next on the agenda is to fill the rest of the displaced dirt back into the rows, as well as spraying the weeds and maybe tying up the pruned vines to the wires. After that I'll be back to familiar ground (pun intended) getting the newly planted land up and running (getting bamboo poles in, planting cover crop, putting up trellis posts, etc.)

This is a hook:

Wire and pruning

2009-04-10T10:11:00.006-04:00

First off, you'll notice a complete overhaul of the appearance of the blog. When I started, I just threw it together, hardly stopping to consider the format or template. Yesterday I got ambitious, found a cool photo and tried to match the layout to it. Let me know what you think.

Actual vineyard news includes most of my cordon wires being installed:

Also, I finally started pruning. I finished all the table grapes and now that I have cordon wires up I can move onto wine grapes. Also, about a week ago, I took 3 guys out and we raked the woodchips away from the vines. While we were at it, we took the time to rake out all the other debris (dead weeds, mostly) from under the trellis. The wire should be finished on Monday and if I can make decent time pruning it'll be done by the middle of next week. After that I want to get some herbicide on and maybe mow the rows to chop up the prunings and tidy up a little.

A final note, Lanie loves the vineyard. I take her with me when I work there and she occupies herself for hours, just running around.

Finishing up transplanting

2009-03-25T14:13:00.006-04:00

We got back to the HVL today to transplant the rest of the trees in anticipation of the rain coming tonight. As promised, here are some better pictures.

Digging up the trees

Pulling out the roots

Loading the trailer

The empty spaces

The trees arrive at our farm

Waiting to be planted

Done!

A view from the hill

You might notice an empty space or two. There were two trees that were pretty sick-looking which we didn't bother to bring home. Thus, I only have 5 Dabinette trees and 5 Sammerset Red Streak trees. I may try to graft next year or something, but for now they'll just be dead space. I actually really enjoyed this project, and I'm happy with the results. Now if the trees will root, I'll be very satisfied.

Cider Apple Trees

2009-03-23T13:37:00.006-04:00

We started transplanting the cider apple trees that the HV Lab gave me. The total number of trees we'll be getting is 60 (10 varieties, 6 of each), and so far we've brought over 30- 3 of each variety. We were planning on getting the other 30 today, but the weather has been cold so the ground is pretty hard. We're going to wait a few days to go back and dig the rest. Here's a few pictures I snapped with my phone. I'll get some better ones with a real camera when we finish up later this week.

Using the auger to dig the holes.

A few of the trees planted, a few more waiting on the trailer.

At the Lab, the trees alternate varieties (1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-etc). We're planing like varieties next to eachother (1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2-2, etc), which explains the skipped spaces.

We had to prune quite a bit of limbs off the trees to get them home. This was also necessary due to the large amount of root damage we do to them by digging them up.

Techinical stuff: the trees are ~6 years old, grafted on M9 rootstocks, planted 7' x 16' with no real training established yet.

Varieties:
-Binet Rouge
-Harry Masters (my favorite variety name)
-Sammerset Red Streak
-Chisel Jersey
-Ellis Bitter
-Dabinette
-Madaille d'Or
-Brown Snout
-Tremlats Bitter
-Michelin

There was an 11th variety available (Major), but the fruit that came off it last year was really terrible, the trees are almost twice the size of the other varieties and apparently they don't grow properly in our climate. We left those there to be added to the brush heap.

End-of-Winter Update

2009-03-17T09:14:00.002-04:00

Not a whole lot has been happening. I've been filling my time by attending conferences, lectures and meetings. Most notably, Kristin and I took a weekend and went to Waterloo for the annual Finger Lakes Grape Growers Conference. Obviously, I'm not a Finger Lakes Grape Grower, but a lot of the material was still relevant to what I'm doing, and I got to meet a lot of growers and owners from the wineries that really got me interested in all of this. Not only that, but I got to see a few of the people I worked with last summer at Cornell, which was nice.

In the vineyard, not too much has changed. The vines are still dormant, and I haven't gotten out to prune yet. I figure that'll happen next week. I ordered and received all my trellis wire and supplies, so shortly after pruning I'll be putting that up and I'll finally be able to say I've established a working vineyard. I've also ordered 250 more Noiret vines to fill the 5 rows I left empty last year. They're on different rootstock than my other Noirets (Riparia instead of 3309 if you know what I'm talking about and care at all), so it'll be interesting to see the difference between the two.

Additionally, the Ulster County Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) has 66 cider apple trees (11 varieties, 6 trees of each) they no longer want, which they have offered to me. Sometime in the next week, we'll be over there digging up these trees to transplant to a spot on our farm. It'll be an experience, since not even my grandfather has ever transplanted mature trees before. We've got the spot picked out and yesterday I started working the soil and scouting the rows. The trees will be nowhere near the vineyard (a few miles away, actually), but they'll still be my endeavor since I plan to use them for hard cider/apple wine eventually.

Spring is coming on quick and while I'm looking forward to the weather, I can't say I'm looking forward to all the work it brings.

Death Toll

2009-02-12T09:26:00.002-05:00

I finally got around to cutting the vines I've been soaking, and was mildly surprised. Keep in mind, this is a VERY small sample (only 2 shoots per variety), but here's what I found:
Chardonnay: 50% mortality
Cab Franc: 50% mortality
Cayuga White: 0% mortality
Noiret: 0% mortality

I got really nervous because the first shoot I cut was totally dead. The level of death was to be expected. That one really cold week had me worried, but these numbers are totally acceptable, and I'm very happy with what I found. My lesson here: genetic modification is a great thing! Thank you Cornell!

2009-01-29T09:42:00.003-05:00

On Tuesday I went to the vineyard to collect some shoots. I clipped two from each variety (not including the seedless) and brought then back to soak in some water. In another day or two I'll cut some buds to see what kind of damage I've sustained so far. I'll update again when I know.

Keep your fingers crossed

2009-01-20T14:47:00.003-05:00

Straight to the point: it got really really cold last week. The coldest it's been here in half a decade. While I don't have a thermometer in the vineyard to tell me how cold it got there, here at my house it was -6 in the morning after the sun was already rising. My grandfather guesses it was -10 or worse around my vines.

There's not a lot to do now but wait and see what kind of damage was sustained, and it'll be hard to tell until it warms up a little. For now all I can do is try not to dwell on it, get my pruning done and hope for the best.

It's F-ing cold!

2009-01-15T08:17:00.003-05:00

The thermometer said "8" when I woke up this morning, which was a relief. My vines can take 8 degrees. What they have trouble with is when temperatures drop much below 0, which is what's going to happen tonight and tomorrow night.

It's the coldest temperatures that New Paltz has seen in over 5 years, and of course it's because I decided to plant grapes this year. The forecast lows for tonight have bounced around from -1 to -9 and everywhere in between during the last few days. The more fragile of the vines (the vinifera) can take 0 and even -5, but -10 will result in a good amount of damage. The hybrids, especially the Cayuga White can (hopefully) stand quite a bit colder than that.

The good news is that I prepared for this with the woodchips, and if they do what they're supposed to do they should keep at least the roots and graft alive, meaning I'll at least have living vines to start with in the spring. The other hope is that the snow that has fallen will provide some extra insulation (yes, snow keeps things warm). Plus, the fact that the weather hasn't been overly warm means that the vines should be prepared for a cold snap as best they can be.

All there is now is to watch the thermometer and hope that when spring rolls around I haven't lost everything I did this year. If that does happen, though, there's only one thing to do...Blame Canada for sending us this cold air!

Winter's Almost Here

2008-12-17T16:20:00.003-05:00

With winter quickly approaching, stuff is slowing down a bit around the farm. We're still steady packing apples to ship to the supermarkets, and will be till May. Now that we're not hectic picking and storing apples from the fall we have some time to catch up on other things that need attention, including my grapes.

The biggest job right now is protecting the vines from the winter cold. Unlike the smart people who establish their vineyards in sunny California, we in upstate New York have to work to make sure our vines don't freeze over the winter and effectively negate all work done to establish the vineyard.

There are plenty of ways to keep vines from freezing, and it seems that everyone has their own opinion on which is best. The key factor is to insulate the most delicate part of the vine- the graft union (where the vine meets the rootstock). Methods can range from pushing soil around the base of the vine to bending the entire vine over to the ground and letting the snow serve as a natural blanket. I decided to go with a recommendation I got, using piles of woodchip mulch around the trunks. Apparently just a few inches of this mulch can make a difference of up to 15 degrees- life or death for a grape vine. Not only that, but the organic matter left by what is basically a compost heap should be beneficial to the vines next year and the mulch is easier to remove than dirt come spring.

I got the mulch from a pile just up the road where the town highway department dumps all the chips they get from chopping up trees around the road. I used our big dump truck and bucket loader to bring 3 full dump truck loads to the vineyard. Two guys with pitchforks did all 10 rows of vinifera in just about 4 hours, using only about 2 of the 3 loads I brought. While I might still put the leftover mulch on some of the other varieties, I decided it wasn't necessary since the hybrids and seedless vines are much more hardy than the vinifera (Cayuga White is rated to -20 degrees). So the remaining woodchips will be used either to put more insulation on the vinifera or for weed control and organic matter on the hybrids.

I don't have any pictures yet, but when I do I'll post them here. Merry Christmas!

UPDATE!- Before the snow I put the remaining mulch on some of the other varieties, starting with the Noiret and applying until the pile was gone. While I wasn't too worried about the cold, it'll help with nutrients and weed control next year.

Trellis Posts

2008-11-17T11:01:00.003-05:00

Starting to install trellis posts.

Also notice the mowing. I need to go through again before it snows, but it looks a lot better than a month ago.

Lining up the posts.

The auger to drill holes for the posts...and Lanie.

She enjoyed her first visit to the vineyard.

<--Winery dog in training.

Bracing for the Winter

2008-11-10T13:44:00.002-05:00

The hardest part about taking care of these vines has been balancing my time between working on the farm doing apple-related things and finding time to get into the vineyard and take care of my own interests. At this point in my life, the apple business comes first- mostly because it's financing my grape endeavor for the time being. Not to mention that I use the businesses equipment, materials and occasionally labor for my own purposes.
This explains why it's been a month and a half since I've updated on anything. Apple harvest consumes ALL of my time, leaving me with barely enough time to eat and sleep. Since I returned from my summer in Ithaca, I've completed 3 things on my vineyard To-Do list. The first was removing all of the Blue-X shelters. This was done by first going through with a pair of ordinary scissors and slicing through the outer piece of plastic. Doing this allowed the inner, more rigid piece to spread back open, making it possible to simply pull the plastic off the vines. Three men, a tractor and a few empty bins got the job done in a day. Ironically, job #1 resulted in an unforeseen job #2. Without the shelters around the vines, many of the vines that hadn't grown tendrils to latch onto the bamboo simply fell over and laid on the ground. This creates a problem when trying to mow, so each vine had to be tied up out of the way using special bio-degradable rubber ties. Once again, three guys finished that in a day.
Finally was mowing. While this shouldn't be a big to-do, it became one, simply because I wasn't properly prepared equipment-wise. As I mentioned before, I planted my vineyard to high-yield specifications, rather than taking into account how apple orchards are set up and therefore how most of the equipment at my disposal is set up. Apple trees are usually spaced much wider than grapes (sometimes rows are over 20 feet apart). I planted my vines 9 feet apart, and couldn't guarantee straight rows, sometimes resulting in even narrower parts.
The narrowest mower the farm owns is 6 feet wide, however it was off-set in order to mow underneath the overhang of an apple tree. We had to take the mower hitch apart and reset it to ride directly behind the tractor so I could navigate the grape rows without taking out any vines. The vineyard had been over-run with weeds due to our delay in finding a suitable mower. It was past the point of embarrassment, in fact, but since the mowing looks much better. I'm planning on going through again and trying to cut it shorter. Not for appearance, but rather to prevent mice from setting up their winter home there. Mice will gnaw on trees and vines, killing the plant, and they love tall grass to live in and be safe from predators. While I was mowing I saw at least a dozen of them, which means I probably didn't see the other 4 dozen that also live there.
The last thing that HAS to be done before it gets much colder is to cover the graft unions. This will help protect the plant from cold damage over the winter. We're currently brainstorming the best way to accomplish this.
The other thing that SHOULD be done, but can wait till March, is trellising. I've been talking about it since I ordered the vines, but still haven't gotten around to getting it done. Once the post-driving crew gets motivated, it'll happen quick. Then I just have to run 12 miles (yeah, 12) of trellis wire and it'll be all set.
I'm not sure how much, if any, land I'll be allowed next spring for more vines. I'm looking into varieties to buy if I do. If you have a suggestion/request, leave a comment.

Back to the grind

2008-08-29T21:05:00.004-04:00

So it's been a few months since I've given any updates, the reason being that I spent the summer in Ithaca working for Bellwether Hard Cider and the Cornell Horticulture Department. Working at Bellwether and helping in the cellar was my main motivation for spending the summer in the Finger Lakes. In addition to the wine I'll eventually be making, it seemed almost natural to make hard cider as well, considering I have 2 acres of grapes and 250 acres of apples at my disposal, and I figured some real-life experience was the best thing for me. The job at Cornell was a second resort in order to fill in the hours of the week, but ended up being just as helpful as working at Bellwether. I did a lot of work in a few grape test plots at Cornell, doing field work and helping with experiments, mainly about the effects of irrigation on grape vines. A lot of it was tedious manual labor, but that's what a majority of farming is anyway.

So I'm back now with new knowledge and experience and my vines are doing just fine. Thanks to my dad and grandfather for caring for them while I was gone. Also, a big thanks to Kristin for all the great pictures. The biggest burden of the summer seemed to be the unusually high Japanese Beetle population around the region. Multiple spray applications had to be made to rid the farm of these leaf-devouring pests, but it seems my vines survived unscathed.

Currently on my To-Do list is to remove all those Blue-X shelters I spent so much time applying and putting in trellis posts. The shelters have to be removed before the weather starts to turn colder so the vines will grow their bark layer that will allow them to survive the cold winter to come. Managing that while harvesting an apple crop? No problem...

Photo Update!

2008-08-28T22:12:00.011-04:00

While Tim was gone for the summer, I (Kristin) decided to keep him updated with the progress of the vineyard. Here's what went on with the vines this summer...

June 14:

Cayuga White & Noiret

Reliance grape blossom!

June 21st:

bigger grape blossoms

August 10

new growth bursting out of the grow tubes.

Grapes!!! tart but tasty :)

Picture update

2008-06-02T11:24:00.008-04:00

It seems like I've been doing a lot of work in the vineyard lately, but there's not a whole lot to talk about. I finished putting all the Blue-X shelters on about a week and a half ago, so now the field looks like this:

After finishing that, it rained quite a bit, so I took a short break from field work. After the rain slowed up, I spread grass seed (which is actually on in that picture, but you can't really tell) in between the rows as a cover. After the seed was down, I did another once-over with a rake to turn and level the soil. I got prepared and marked out where I wanted trellis posts to be installed, but my tight row spacing has come back to haunt me in a big way. All of our equipment is meant for orchard use where trees are spaced 12 feet apart. My vineyard rows are only 9 feet wide, so a lot of the equipment the farm owns is too wide to use in the vineyard. So, I've had to postpone installing trellis posts until after the fall or even next spring when the stakes will be taken out and the post-pounder can straddle the vines while installing the posts.

The vine growth lately has been unbelievable. Vines that I was worried had died in transplanting are alive and growing rapidly. Most vines have a good 6 or 7 inches of new growth already and some have even more than that. Take a look:

There are also even some immature grape clusters starting to grow on some of the table grape vines!

On an unrelated note, I thought I should mention that my vineyard has become the home of a Killdeer bird (Wikipedia Article) and her nest. What's really cool about these birds is that they lay their eggs right on the ground in the field. If you get too close to the nest, the mother will hop along the ground and fan her wings out like she's injured to lure predators (like me) away from the nest. According to my great-grandfather, having a Killdeer in your field is good luck and you should do your best not to disturb or destroy their nest. That's nice and all, but it's a big hassle plowing around it. But she's been there for at least a month now, so hopefully the eggs will hatch soon. Here's her nest:

Today and tomorrow I'll be working on irrigation and that should be the majority of the work for this spring.

Chuggin' Along

2008-05-19T09:24:00.002-04:00

The last few weeks have been relatively busy. The planting was obviously just the first big step in a long process, so I've been scrambling to get all the things done that need to be done pretty much immediately after the grapes are in the ground.

All the bamboo stakes are installed. Each vine got its own 1/2" x 6' bamboo pole, the function of which is to give the vine something to grow vertically on, rather than horizontally along the ground. The other, and more important function, is to give something to attach my growtubes to. If you're curious about growtubes, click here to visit the website. It's a really cool concept, so if you're not too scared of a little science I encourage you to check it out. I've put in about 250 of the 2000 growtubes, but before they can be installed they have to be assembled. I took advantage of the rain on Friday and got a crew of 3 guys (and some of my mom's Ice Cream servers) to help me put the other 1750 together. Now I just have to wait for the ground to dry to finish putting them on.

Before the end of May, I hope to have the growtubes finished, grass seed spread and my irrigation lines laid. If that goes well, I'll be pushing to get the trellis posts pounded also, but that can wait if it has to.

The Valley got hit with a bad frost about 2 weeks ago. Frost during the spring time can kill emerging buds, preventing them from fruiting that season. The one frost we got was particularly bad, since by 1am the temperature had reached 25 degrees and just stayed there until 6am. The apple crop got hit pretty badly and I hear rumors that Whitecliff Vineyards lost about 80% of their grapes for this year. From what I can tell, my vines are OK. Since there's no crop this year anyway, I'm just concerned about the buds for new growth, but things are still green and buds are still popping so hopefully I'll be alright. The awesome warm weather we've been having, broken up perfectly by good amounts of rain has been ideal, so if we can avoid anymore cold nights, it should turn out to be an awesome growing season.

That's all from the grape front. If you're interested, other things are happening around the farm. Strawberries are starting to grow and cherries aren't far behind, but you can read all of that either on the farm website or on the farm's blog. And don't forget about the ice cream!

Signs of life

2008-05-08T16:08:00.003-04:00

Not a whole lot has happened since the planting. This isn't because of my lack of interest, obviously, but more along the lines of lack of time and materials. Other projects around the farm have taken priority and I've been waiting for trellis posts and bamboo to arrive before moving on in the process.

The posts arrived on Tuesday and the bamboo came in today. While there's not a huge rush to get either installed (the trellis doesn't even need to be in this year), I'll be pushing for the next 3 weeks to get as much done as possible so the summer months can almost be flown by auto-pilot.

As far as vine progress goes, it's a slow process. Most of the "vines" look like little more than fat twigs sticking 4 inches out of the ground. Upon closer inspection, small pink/orange buds are visible on most of them. The larger first-year vines are showing more potential, especially the seedless varieties.
Some are even starting to sprout leaves:

So I apparently didn't successfully kill EVERYTHING during planting. Hopefully by this time next week I'll have the bamboo and grow tubes on. I'm in no hurry to put in the trellis posts, but my Dad seems to think that the sooner I get them in, the better. I'm more concerned about irrigation lines, but we'll see how things pan out.

Step 1- Complete

2008-04-28T10:53:00.003-04:00

All the vines are planted. It took a crew of 5 about 10 hours to get all 2000 vines in, but we got it done by 5pm Friday which ended up being perfect. All last week was very dry, so the ground was perfect for planting. I was skeptical about getting all of the vines planted by the end of Friday, but I'm glad we pushed and got it done before the weekend. On Saturday we got a very little bit of rain- just enough to settle the dust. Today we're getting a lot of rain which couldn't have come at a better time after this drought. It'll kick-start the vine growth and give me time to organize the irrigation I'll be putting in.

The next step is simple enough- get a bamboo post next to every vine and tie the vine to it where possible. This does a number of things. First, it makes it so you can actually SEE things in the field. Right now it's very difficult to pick out the vines even if you're standing right next to them. Most are very small stubs sticking out of the ground only a few inches, and I don't want the neighbor kids on their dirt bikes riding over then unaware of the damage they're causing. Second, the poles act as the first step in the vine training system, allowing them something to attach to and grow upwards, rather than out to the sides. Lastly, the poles are necessary when applying the grow tubes to the individual vines.

After the posts are in, my grandfather suggests that I drive in the large posts that the wire trellis will attach to. While the wire won't need to be strung until next spring, the posts are much easier to install when the plants are small and there's no irrigation line to work around. I'm not sure this will actually happen now, but it's on the table. Obviously, before the summer kicks into full swing I'll be running trickle irrigation lines down every row. These are exactly what the name suggests- small black tubes with pinholes every few feet that allow water to trickle around the base of every vine.

I've been putting more serious thought into training systems today. For those who don't know, "training system" refers to the way you attach the vines to the wires to encourage a certain style of growth. Rather than explaining further, here's a link to go to if you feel like bettering yourself with knowledge (courtesy of Cornell University). For the vinifera vines, I'm pretty positive I'll be going with a vertical shoot positioning (or VSP) system that looks like this. For most of the other stuff, my narrow rows are pretty much forcing me to do a single curtain system, but the vines are too vigorous for a VSP. This requires something more along the lines of a Scott Henry system. It's a difficult system to establish and maintain, but in the end it should work out pretty well.

That's enough technical stuff for this post. I have a whole bunch of pictures taken these past two weeks, but they get pretty repetitive. I'll post them to a photo album and put the link up here sometime soon so you can browse them at your own leisure.

Offically a Vineyard!

2008-04-24T18:30:00.004-04:00

Huge update. For the past week or so I've been pushing hard to get the ground ready for planting. This included finally taking out all the remaining roots, chisel plowing the ground twice, disk plowing the ground 3 times, measuring and marking the rows, and sub-soil hooking the rows. Basically, all that work made the ground go from looking like this:
to this:

You can see the stakes with the ribbons in the field. Those are to mark where the rows will be so when hooking and planting the rows come out uniform and straight.

Today officially made me a "Vineyard Manager" when I put my first 300 vines in the ground. I made up a map of where I plan on planting my different varieties and decided to put in all of the seedless varieties today. I did this for a few reasons: first, the seedless are cheaper vines and don't produce wine-making grapes, so they seemed the safest bet to "practice" planting with. Second, the number of seedless grape vines conveniently came out to an even 3 rows on my map, and finally, there's only 300 vines and I didn't start 'till about 2pm so I figured I could get them all in the ground before all my hired help called it a day.

Here's some choice shots from today:
Groundbreaking!

First Vine (Interlaken Seedless)

Planting my first vine

The planting crew.

It's supposed to rain on Saturday (after a mini-drought we've been having), so I really want to get as many vines planted tomorrow as possible. It's gonna be a LONG day. We planted 300 vines in about 2 hours today. That leaves 1700 more to put in tomorrow. Hopefully we get into a good rhythm and figure out a faster way to bang through the rows. At the very least I want to get the 1000 vinifera in tomorrow. So if you're really interested in helping, stop by the vineyard (it's really a vineyard now) anytime tomorrow...I'll certainly be there. Bring water.

Vines are in!

2008-04-16T13:59:00.004-04:00

I received my 2000 vines this morning at about 10:00 via UPS Freight. Here's some pictures:

These are the bins that they came in. Nothing fancy here.

Lift the lid and this is what you see.

Inside the plastic it really just looks like a bunch of wet sticks.

This is a bundle of 25 vines. You can see that theres more root than vine at this point.

Cayuga White!

And up-close shot of the bundle. Notice the buds...without those, it's just a twig with roots.

So that's the exciting news of the week. By the end of this afternoon the vineyard should finally be clear of all stumps, roots, etc and tomorrow we can start to plow and turn the soil in anticipation for planting early next week! Let me know if you feel like getting dirty.

Almost there

2008-04-14T11:45:00.004-04:00

This will be yet another photo entry. It's becoming more and more of a photo blog than anything else. My grandfather was bored and decided to bulldoze the stumps out on Sunday afternoon without me. I'm not complaining, because it got done, but I was kind of looking forward to driving the bulldozer. Oh well.

Today we're chainsawing the tops of the stumps off to save for firewood and hopefully I can get around to hauling the roots away this afternoon. If the weather cooperates tomorrow I'll try to get the ground plowed and tilled and disked because my 2000 vines are due in on Wednesday.

On a similar note, I made a deal with another local grower to swap 50 of my Interlaken vines for 50 of his Himrod vines. Long story short, I wanted Himrod but my nursery was sold out and he wanted Interlaken which HIS nursery was sold out of. We found this ironic and he was very excited to trade with me, so I've had his 50 vines in our cooler here since Friday. It's getting pretty real pretty fast.

But I digress. Here's the pictures:

Update to the Logo

2008-04-03T16:09:00.003-04:00

I took the comments received from the name and logo post and tweaked it a little. No drastic changes and I only did a very rough coloring job. I'm thinking the blue should be a little darker, but here's the scheme, anyway.

My biggest concern is that "and Cider House" gets lost in the big picture, which was my reasoning for keeping "Vineyards" on the bottom with it originally. I've also gotten some concerns that the crest is too busy to put on stuff and people won't understand what it's about. Lemme know what you think.

Burn, baby, burn!

2008-03-28T13:55:00.003-04:00

It's been explained before. Here's some of the pictures of the brush burning.

I took a bunch more, but for the most part they all look alike.

Next step: finish removing stumps, then let the grass and weeds grow a little so RoundUp will work.

The soil sample has been taken and mailed in for analysis. Pending that result I'll know what I have to add to the ground before planting. Also, I pushed back my vine order so it won't be shipped till April 14th. Obviously, the ground isn't ready and the weather isn't quite there yet so I really had no choice and had to put the vines on hold. It shouldn't be a big deal, and if they're shipped on the 14th, I might have a very big birthday present on the 19th waiting for me.

The Manual Labor Begins

2008-03-25T18:05:00.005-04:00

I officially got my hands dirty in what will by my vineyard a month from now. Here's some pictures of what's being done now.

It's pretty self explanatory I think. The brush is pushed into large piles to be burned. The larger logs from the cut-up trees are loaded into the front-end loader and dumped in the truck to be hauled away to a large pile to dry for a year and later be sold as firewood. You can see the smaller stumps have already been pushed out in the first pictures.
It's cool watching this all take shape. I mean, I know it happens every year on the farm, but it's different knowing it's for my grapes and hopefully the beginning of a much bigger business.

...and yes, I did actually drive tractor and throw logs rather than take pictures all afternoon.

Finally A Name

2008-03-18T16:21:00.005-04:00

So after all that fuss over finding a clever, creative name I think I settled on one. Ironically, it's probably the most basic, obvious name I could have picked, but I'll let you be the judge. Here's the logo that will go on the cover sheet of my business plan:

The crest is supposedly the Dressel Family Coat of Arms. I say supposedly because I found it on the internet and you know you gotta take that with a grain of salt. But regardless, it looks pretty cool I think. If there's ever been an entry in this blog where I've wanted your comments, this is it, by the way.

Past that there's a few small bits to update. I've started the final steps for clearing the land for the vines which arrive in about 2 weeks. I'll be taking soil samples tomorrow if it doesn't rain, and I'm very, VERY close to done with my business plan. (I know I'm a slacker, but it's very rare that I get time to really sit down and work at it)

So that's all for now. Let me know what you think of the name/crest/etc.

Fruit School

2008-03-03T09:54:00.004-05:00

On Friday I attended an event put on by the Hudson Valley Cornell Cooperative Extension. It's a 4-day long, annual program that is commonly known as "Fruit School." People I've told about it have gotten a kick out of the name, but it's actually a really good thing to go to to learn about all the new techniques, etc. and news from the past year. The first two days are all about tree fruits (apples, cherries, peaches, etc.), the third day is berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries) and the last day is grapes. The grape day is co-coordinated by the HVWGA (Hudson Valley Wine and Grape Association), of which, as of Friday, I am a member.

Basically the run-down of the day is 7 hours of lectures with a lunch break in the middle. We learned about everything from planting, training, spraying, new varieties and sustainability. Plus a bunch more stuff that is just too much to go into detail about. Overall it was a good investment of time and I got a lot out of it. At the end of the day, the HVWGA held a short meeting (partly because there was wine to taste and Cornell's insurance didn't allow it to be poured during its event), where we discussed the future of the Hudson Valley wine industry and what is being done to promote and further expand. It was during this part of the day that I was more formally introduced to the people I'll be working with. This was probably the most educational part of the day for me. Let's just say it's going to be an interesting industry to break into.

On another note, March snuck up on me and it's scary to think that my vines are being delivered exactly 4 weeks from today! I have my work cut out for me and stuff is going to speed up a lot very shortly. Stay tuned.

First snag

2008-02-19T17:53:00.002-05:00

Nothing too terrible- The nursery was sold out of Himrod Seedless vines so I chose to substitute Interlaken instead. Turns out this lowered my bill because I don't have to pay the royalties Himrod required on Interlaken. Can't argue with saving a few hundred bucks, and Interlaken should work just fine.

Exact Area

2008-02-08T16:56:00.001-05:00

I was able to make it out today to measure the acreage I was allotted using a GPS device. Turns out my plot is 94,531 square feet which equates to 2.17013315 acres. That means that my 2000 vines should be just right. Now I gotta log some bulldozer time.

The First Big Step

2008-02-08T11:14:00.000-05:00

So after putting it off and putting it off, I finally bit the bullet and ordered my vines for this spring! I've been delaying because of a lot of uncertainties including the status of that grant, how much land I have, what kind of soil I'm planting in, how much money I have, etc. and finally I decided it was just time to do it.

The whole process, from dialing to hanging up the phone took about 5 minutes. $6,000 spent in 5 minutes...unbelievable. I ordered through Double A Vineyards out of Fredonia, NY. I found them while doing my own research last summer and since then have had multiple people recommend them to me, so I'm very confident that they'll work out well for me.

For the record, here's what I finally ordered:
500 - Cab Franc
500 - Chardonnay
350 - Cayuga White
350 - Noiret
150 - Reliance Seedless
150 - Himrod Seedless

The spacing I'm planning on using calls for about 960 vines per acre and I'm planting ~2 acres. Some quick math shows that I ordered 2000 vines. I figure if I have more than what fits, my grandfather will have to give me more land or find a different place to plant. The 300 seedless grapes are per his request so he can sell them at the farm stand in the fall and justify wasting 2 acres of his land on wine grapes. I think my dad and I are slowly convincing him that I'm not going to crash and burn with this plan, but he still plays the devil's advocate when I get a new idea.

So that's the big news for the week. I'm feeling really good having this off of my mind. The vines will be shipped on March 31 and get here the first week in April. Between now and then i have to finish clearing that land, so I have my work cut out for me. I'll keep posting with pictures and updates, so stay tuned because stuff should be getting a lot more interesting as soon as March hits!

Finally some new activity!

2008-01-29T10:39:00.000-05:00

So it's been something like a month and a half since my last entry. Not because I'm too lazy to write anything, but simply because progress has been pretty minimal the past month. But the spring is starting to creep up on me and since things are running relatively smoothly with the apple business I've been able to shift some of my attention back to the winery.

Like I said, the machine has been at a stand-still for the holiday season so updates are slim. I'm 95% done with my business plan as it is right now (not including editing and tweaking). I've started my application process to a Farm Credit program called FarmStart, which is designed to help young farmers start their business off right by forwarding them up to $50,000 to be repaid with low interest rates over 5 years. To submit my offer for review I'll need to adjust my business plan to incorporate all the aspects they're looking for, which shouldn't be too hard as I have 6 of the 7 specific things already included. It would have been nice, however, to have their template from the beginning.

The latest news as of now is that I finally heard back about that grant I was in the running for. Since I hadn't gotten a call about it and considering how big of a factor it was in my planning, I called the Lab this morning and talked with the guy who put the grant application through. Unfortunately, it was shot down. Damn. I'm obviously kinda bummed about this as it would have saved me THOUSANDS of dollars and a whole lot of man-hours, but at the same time I wasn't shocked to hear it was rejected. The deal he told me did seem way too good to be true and when that's the case you can be pretty sure that it probably is. So he obviously is feeling kind of bad about it too and he says he's going to propose a similar grant to a different organization for next year. In the meantime he's going to come out to the site and walk it with me and give me his pointers and get some soil samples. Hopefully by the end of the week I can have the analysis back and know what root stocks I need for my vines.

Next, it seems that I'll only have 2 acres to plant on this spring rather than the anticipated 4. This is due to a few different things: 1) only 2 acres have been cut down so far and 2) the second 2 acres weren't slated to be removed this year anyway and with my grant falling through my grandfather decided he wanted to keep his other 2 acres as apple trees for another season. This isn't finalized yet, but it seems like that's going to be how it goes. Oh well.

Lastly, I'm still stuck on naming this beast. I've had family and friends brainstorming for months now and I've recently told them that I'm a little disappointed in their lack of enthusiasm. While I've gotten a few suggestions (VERY few), I don't feel that they're putting their heart and soul into this huge endeavor I asked of them. So anyway, after much brainstorming I actually had one name that has popped at me a little bit: "Die Pfalz Vineyards" (pronounced "Dee pFalz") If you're not from the area you probably have no idea where I came up with this, so here's a brief explanation:

From Wikipedia :
New Paltz was founded in 1678 by French Huguenots who had taken refuge in Mannheim, Germany, for a few years before coming to America. Mannheim was, at that time, capital of the area called the Rhenish Palatinate or, in German, the Rhein Pfalz. The European migration to New Paltz was influenced by the Esopus Wars. The people of Mannheim leave out the "f" in the name Pfalz, pronouncing it "Paltz."

So the original German name for New Paltz was "Die Pfalz" after the region in Germany, also famous for its wine. Taking into account my heavy German ancestry, the incorporation of the history of the area and the direct name connection to the German wine region I'm really starting to like the name. The name also gives the tasting room pourers something to talk about during wine tastings. When I worked at Americana, the old barn and its renovation story lent us a lot to talk about when nothing else arose, and being able to give the background to the name would be a fun topic. The only obvious down-side is the difficult pronunciation. This is not definitely the name I'm going to go with and I'm still accepting constructive criticism and other name suggestions.

That's all I got today. I'll try not to make it another month before I update again. 'Till then, stay tuned. Hopefully the gears have started turning for good this time!

Firewood, anyone?

2007-12-13T11:28:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I know I already did a post with similar pictures, but I figured it'd be cool to do another update where the weather was marginally better.

I know this looks pretty much the same, but there's about 2x as many trees cut down. To explain the process, you can see all the small branches piled up in between the rows. Those will go in a woodpile to be burned. The larger limbs have already been cut up and taken away to be sold as firewood. The stumps are left so a bulldozer can come in and push them to remove the roots.

As you can see here, since the last photo entry, the peach trees have also been cut down and are ready to be rooted. Now just picture this whole area full of grape vines...

I told you there was a view...

Just another view from the hill. Funny thing though, these pictures were taking around 8:30am on December 13, 2007....

This was taken at 10:15am on December 13, 2007. (To point out the obvious, that's less than 2 hours later, just 2 miles away from the previous pictures)

As far as other stuff goes, the business plan is coming along slowly, but surely. I've been having trouble putting together the laws and regulations I'll be dealing with, so I temporarily skipped that part and will go back to it after I finish the rest of the plan. I'll probably have to get some help from other winery owners or the Cornell Extension again, just to be 100% sure that I don't miss anything.

The Plan

2007-11-30T08:36:00.000-05:00

So, as I predicted, my blog has been very sparse to begin with simply because there's really been very little exciting news lately. As far as vines go, I've gotten as far as getting a price quote from the nursery on the varietals I want and, in turn, decided it was time to start looking into loans.

Over the summer I was made aware of a program offered by Farm Credit, the bank Dressel Farm uses for loans, etc. The program is called "Farm Start," and is designed for new farmers (like myself) and cooperatives who are in need of affordable loans to get their business off the ground. The loan can be up to $50,000 payable over up to 5 years.

Of course, applying for this loan (or any other loan, for that matter) requires a business plan. I've been putting off starting my business plan for weeks now, simply because I didn't feel that I had the time, resources or necessary information to complete it. Looking back and knowing myself, I was simply procrastinating because I know how tedious writing a business plan can be. But, anyway, I finally bit the bullet (sorry for the bad cliche) and began work on the business plan for the no-name winery. (On a side note, it was a little disheartening when I couldn't fully fill in the very first page of the plan because the business has no title yet.)

To aid in my writing, I've been using a template and sample business plan for new small wineries provided on Cornell's grape website, which I wasn't even aware existed but has lately become a HUGE resource. As of right now, I've written only about 4 pages which include the Business Description, Plan of Operations, and Management and Employee job descriptions. The next step is Industry Analysis, which won't be my favorite part but I'll be real glad when it's done. When I'm totally done with the whole thing I'll find a way to post it here. I'll eventually be looking for investors, so if it interests you and you've got some cash sitting around that you don't know what to do with, give it all to me!

One final thought that I have concerning this plan: it feels really good to finally be applying my education to something real. Since May, I really haven't done anything that even comes close to tapping into my brain that is now supposedly worth so many thousands of dollars. Actually applying stuff that I learned has started to make me feel better about all these student loans I'm having to pay back and has reminded me that I am capable of more than forklift driving and cider jugging.

Anyway, keep checking back. Hopefully within the next few weeks I have my vines (finally) ordered, my soil sample taken and this business plan finished.

"Before" Pictures

2007-11-20T20:20:00.000-05:00

I took some pictures of the plot where I'm planning on planting next spring. As you'll see, there's still a lot of work to be done.

Here's the link to the album:
Pictures

Land!

2007-11-13T13:20:00.000-05:00

A small update for today. I officially got my grandpa to give in to my request for land today! As I type this there's an employee out there with a chainsaw cutting down a block of peaches. Also to be cleared out are a block of MacIntosh and a block of Red Delicious apples. The peaches and Macs are both really old blocks that aren't producing a whole lot of fruit anymore and the Red Delicious are just terrible trees that gave us nothing but cider apples this year. I'm not sure of the exact total acreage I'm getting out of this, yet. Tomorrow's supposed to be a bad day weather-wise, but I hope to get out there with a measuring wheel or GPS device and get the exact area so I know how many vines I need to order.

On a different note, I'm going to the city (New York City) tonight to sit in on the final class of Kevin Zraly's Windows on the World wine course. Similar to the last class of the Cornell Hotel School Wines course, it's Champagne and Port tastings. However, unlike Cornell, I'll be tasting moderately priced Champagne in addition to Veuve Clicquot and Dom Perignon. I'm just a little excited.

Also on another note, I failed to mention my plans for starting a hard cider business to compliment my wine. This is a much more feasible and immediate business endeavor, since I already have access to apples and cider making equipment. I've already made two small batches of cider in my house, one came out good the other not so much, and I'm hoping to increase the scale within the next year or so. I'll keep you posted on how that goes as well. I'm preparing to start two new batches in my basement, but I haven't gotten around to sterilizing all the equipment or getting the yeast ready yet. Maybe this weekend...

Genesis

2007-11-12T16:40:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody! Obviously, this is the first post to this blog. I've been brainstorming about this for a while now, but I've simply been way too busy to start it until now.

The purpose of this blog is to kind of record my thoughts, ideas, actions, etc. as I start my progress towards (hopefully) establishing my own vineyard and winery. This way, when I'm super rich and famous, or, when I run my whole operation into the ground, you and I can look back and see exactly what I did to get where I got to.

To begin, I guess I'll do some background info stuff. My name is Tim Dressel, I'm 22 and I'm a recent graduate of Cornell University from the college of Ag and Life Sciences. I currently live in New Paltz, which is located in the Hudson Valley in upstate New York.

I got interested in wine while attending school in Ithaca, mostly thanks to my friends who dragged me around the Finger Lakes tasting any wine we could get our hands on. The idea to open a winery wasn't something I decided overnight, however. My family owns and operates a 300-acre apple farm, and when my Dad expressed some interest in possibly moving part of the farm in a different direction, we discussed the possibility of planting grape vines and building a winery to go with it.

The first question people always seem to ask me when I mention my plan is "Are there other wineries in your area?" Well, in fact, there are. My farm actually sits right in the middle of the Shawangunk Wine Trail and there are a whole handful of wineries all around the area. The Hudson Valley used to be a more major wine region before prohibition, but is slowly making it's way back onto the map. And with the help of a bunch of organizations and farmers, there has been a recent effort to increase awareness and activity in the Hudson Valley wine business. For more info, check out this link:
Hudson Valley Wine and Grape Association

At this point, my winery is still just an idea. There's practically nothing on paper, the land I'll be planting on still has peach trees planted in it and I haven't even thought of a name for the whole thing yet. That being said, I have actually been doing a lot to try to get the wheels moving. Such things include attending seminars, acquiring land (by way of begging my grandfather), deciding what kinds of grapes to plan, and making valuable contacts with horticulturists, vitners, winemakers, and even a state senator. Through these contacts I've apparently made a decent impact on people because even before I've ordered my vines I've had multiple calls from winemakers looking to buy grapes and juice from me! Sadly, I've had to tell them that they'll have to wait a few years, but please call back in 2010.

Also, by talking myself up to some Cornell Cooperative Extension scientists I've become involved in what hopefully turns out to be a sizable grant aimed at expanding the wine industry in the Hudson Valley. If the grant is approved, the government would pay Cornell to come to my farm, plant my vines (using the latest laser planting system), install my trellis training system, and maintain the vines for the first 2-3 years. Additionally, if I weren't going to use the grapes I grow for my own wine, Cornell would help establish contracts with area wineries to buy my grapes and juice. All of this in return for letting Cornell use my vineyard as a model when they bring fruit farmers on tours to show them how viticulture can benefit their farm. I'm really crossing my fingers on this one because that's a sweet deal and would save me a LOT of time, money and labor.

So anyway, back to grapes. I've made a tentative list of the varieties I want to start with:
Red:
-Cabernet Franc
-Noiret
-Catawba
-Concord
White:
-Cayuga White
-Seyval Blanc
-Niagara
Seedless:
-Einset
-Concord Seedless
-Himrod

I know some of you reading this who know my tastes will be surprised by the lack of Riesling on that list. I know it's a terrible thing, but I've had to heed the warnings from people who are smarter and more experienced than me. Riesling clusters are very tight and rot too easily for the humidity of the Hudson Valley. With the limited space and breathing room I have right now I have to optimize my operation. I promise that when I get better established and have the ability to experiment there will be Riesling on my land, but for the time being you'll have to stick to good old Dr. Frank. He makes a better Riesling than I could ever hope to make anyway.

As for my current actions, I'm seriously hoping to get my 4ish acres cleared sometime this week. When that's done I'll take soil samples and have the lab analyze them and let me know what I need to do over the winter to adjust pH levels and whatever else. I'll also be ordering my vines sometime soon. I'm pretty sure I'll be ordering from Double A Vineyards based in Fredonia, NY. I found them on my own and then was also referred to them by the owner of Whitecliff Vineyards who was gracious enough to give me a full tour of his operation over the summer.

My last thought to add to this first entry is actually a plea for help. I've brainstormed for close to a year now for what I want to name my winery and I can't settle on anything. If you can think of a name that would leave people with the image of upstate New York, preferably in the fall, please give me suggestions. I'd prefer a name with 2, 1-syllable words, followed by "Vineyards"...an example would be: "Gold Leaf Vineyards."

Anyway, thanks for reading. Updates may come sparsely to begin with, which would be a good reflection of the progress I'll be making over the next few months. The real fun will start in the spring (hopefully).