Turn, turn, turn...

Wow - the grapes are moving along quickly. The Regents in particular are turning color fast.

Regent Grapes

But the real beauties are the Madeleine Angevines:

The row shown above had no cluster thinning. Compare to the row I thinned to one cluster per shoot:

I intend to harvest and weigh separately to determine yield, and measure Brix to see if thinning produced more advanced ripening. I don't know if I'll have enough to vint separately to determine quality.

Even the Pinot noir are starting to show some color:

But they are clearly weeks behind the Regent. My grafted Pinot noir 77 clone is similar:

But the grafted clone Pinot noir Precoce is clearly way ahead of the others:

and the Pinot Blanc, while beautiful clusters, don't look very ripe..

I tested a few Mad Ang and Regent berries today and they were in the 12 to 15 Brix range. Need a couple more weeks!

Véraison

Véraison is a French term for "onset of ripening" in wine grapes. This is really the first year I can readily observe and appreciate the process with sufficient grape berries -- on our 3-year plants. First, the vineyard status on 3-Sep-10. (click any photo for high-res version).

Vineyard Overview

Madeleine Angevine heavy with fruit

Madeleine Angevine

The Mad Ang have a very nice crop - maybe even over-cropped for third year plants. One row (the one pictured above) had no cluster thinning, while the adjacent row was thinned to the best cluster per shoot. I intend to weigh and test resulting must from these two rows separately to see if I detect any notable differences in sugar, acidity or pH. As I say, the Mad Ang, (a white grape) are starting to turn translucent and in the sun you can see the seeds inside each berry.
Mad Ang cluster

Many clusters have nice-sized berries. The Regents (red grape) are not far behind, although the plant vigor, number of vigorous plants, and clusters per plant are all short of the Mad Ang - we will still have a decent crop. I'm guessing there might be 40 to 50 lbs of Regent.

Regent cluster turning

The Pinot noir and Pinot blanc at 3 years are still, for the most part, pretty pitiful compared to the Mad Ang and Regent. I did finally get a full trellis and drip irrigation installed, so that should help considerably. Only 3 or 4 plants of each set fruit this year, so I'll get a sample, but not enough for vinting.

Pinot noir and Pinot blanc

On the right side are second-year Pinot gris, and on the left (barely visible) are the second-year Siegerrebe. They really need better irrigation, as they are not even going to get large enough to reach a first trellis wire this year. Always something...

Growing great

Wow - ten days can really make a difference. Many grape vines are 3 or 4 feet over the top wire. The grape berries are filling out fast. Some are pea-sized already.

Vineyard Overview

Madeleine Angevine unthinned clusters

and a close-up

 

Madeleine Angevine Rows

Regent Rows

If we can get some more warm weather we will have our best crop ever!

Vineyard update

Finally, some warm weather. It sure seemed like this year was challengingly cool...
Here is what we face in the Puget Sound AVA (courtesy WSU viticulture website: http://winegrapes.wsu.edu/gdd.html )

Yeah - we're the pitiful blue line at the bottom. Roughly half the growing-degree-days (GDD) of our eastern WA growers.
So here is where we are at, with respect to Growing Degree Days, compared to a number of prior years. (All reference data is from the WSU Puyallup Experiment Station, which is only a mile or so from our vineyard.).

You can see that while we were off to a dismal start, we are actually not in bad shape now compared to many years (2009 was exceptional...).
On to the crop. Here is a recent shot of the overall vineyard.

and the fruit set on the Mad Ang and Regents is very good.

and the rows of grapes look great

The Pinot noir and Pinot blanc just don't do so well here, yet they are looking better this year. Here are 3-year plants.

I've started wondering what causes tendrils to curl around objects. I took some close-ups of some tendrils.

Wine Grapes - Spring Growth - 3rd year

Things are growing nicely in the vineyard despite our cold and wet weather. Here is the Madeleine Angevine plants this morning.

Madeleine Angevine

Fruit set on Madeleine Angevine

We used no sprays this year, and hope to continue avoiding this if possible.

Regent

Struggling Pinot noir, Pinot blanc, and newly planted Siegerrebe and Pinot gris in South vineyard.

We took a small road trip yesterday and visited the Hollywood Hill Vineyard (driveby) and the Hollywood Hill tasting room. You can visit their website here:

http://www.hollywoodhillvineyards.com/

Enjoyed meeting Becky and very much enjoyed their 2009 Roussanne sourced from a vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA.

Spring has sprung at Raven's Call Vineyard

How exciting to see the grapes all leafing out. The Madeline Angevines are leading the pack.

Madeleine Angevine 30-Apr-10

Seems that every new bud from the laterals has several bunches of grape berry flowers poised to open. If all those set berries I'll have to be thinning the clusters.

The small clusters nestled in the leaves are flower buds.

The "old" (3 years old!) vineyard on the north side of the driveway.

Madeleine Angevine and Regent

And the new vineyard (planted this last winter) on the south side.

Pinot noir, Pinot blanc, Siegerrebe, Pinot gris

Can't wait to see how they all do this year.

Oh yeah - so far, no detectable difference in leaf-out between grafted and self-rooted varieties.

2010 Update on the Vineyard

Oh my, how time flies. I have spent a lot of hours this winter clearing out more trees in order to plant more grapes. The 100 or so cuttings I rooted this last spring spent all summer in pots, rather than in the ground, as there was no room for them. Not a very good start for them.
I did manage to clear out a lot of space and planted the Siergerebbe and the Pinot Gris.

At that point, my vineyard consisted of the following varieties, all on their own roots:
40 Madeleine Angevine
42 Regent
16 Pinot noir
14 Pinot blanc
22 Pinot gris
26 Siegerebbe
and still in pots...
34 Muller-Thurgau
22 Dolcetto

After doing some reading and comparing notes with fellow vintners at work, I decided to make a comparison of my self-rooted grapes with the same varieties grafted onto rootstocks. I purchased, from Raintree Nursery (Morton, Washington http://www.raintreenursery.com/ ) one each of 6 grafted bare-root plants:

1. Cabernet franc on 101-14
2. Pinot noir precoce on 3309
3. Pinot noir 71 on 3309
4. Pinot noir 44 on 101-14
5. Madeleine Angevine on 3309
6. Siegerrebe on 3309

Then a few weeks later I had the chance to visit Cloud Mountain Farm (Eversen, Washington  http://www.cloudmountainfarm.com/ ). They have collaborated for years with WSU and the viticulture program, so had a fantastic selection of wine grape plants suited to the Puget Sound area, and most on any of 3 rootstocks or self-rooted. I purchased one each of the following 7 grafted varieties:

1. Ortega on 3309
2. Siegerrebe on 101-14
3. Madeleine Angevine on Riparia Gloire
4. Madeleine Angevine on 101-14
5. Pinot Gris 146 on 101-14
6. Zwiegelt-Rebe on 101-14
7. Regent on 3309

With this collection I hope to be able to compare, in at least a limited way, on my specific site and soils, Regent, Madeleine Angevine, Siegerrebe, and several Pinot Noir cultivars on several rootstocks, compared to self-rooted. It will take several years to be confident, but one must start somewhere!
 
More later...