Home /
-->
What is Veraison?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Fun Fact by Nancy Hawks Miller, Goosecross: All About Veraison
Did you enjoy this? Here are more Fun Facts from Goosecross Cellars.
NVWR® 104 – The Moth Invasion
June 8, 2010 by David
Filed under Napa Valley Wine Radio
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
You’ve probably seen reports on both the Light Brown Apple Moth and the European Grapevine Moth in recent months and years. How did they get here? What do they mean to us as growers? What’s being done to contain or eradicate the
Courtesy of CSFA
related problems? Nancy Hawks Miller, our Director of Education, is here to give you an update.
In addition to the audio, check these websites for additional information:
How Long Do Grape Vines Live?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Fun Fact by Nancy Hawks Miller, Goosecross: How Long Do Grape Vines Live?
Did you enjoy this? Here are more Fun Facts from Goosecross Cellars.
Harvest Update from Goosecross
Our Harvest Calendar tells the story. September brought us a few blasts of heat and the grapes came rolling in at a fairly rapid fire. The bad news: It’s exhausting to have so many burners going at once. The good news: A lot of the really hard work is behind us, now, so we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 
So, how’s it going? Of course, you expect me to say it’s going great, so I’ll be pleased to oblige! After the roller coaster that was 2008, this has been a beautiful growing season.
Number one, flavors are right where I want them. Beautiful balance, great flavor intensity.
Number two, yields are nice and normal. In some cases, like our Cabernet Franc, even generous! That’s a relief, although not surprising. When the vines pull back one year they often pour it on in the next.
As we reported, at the end of August, we started our harvest significantly later than we did in 2008. Aside from a few heat blasts along the way, this has been a decidedly cool growing season. Some wineries are still quite a bit behind schedule, but we’ve caught up nicely, thanks to that warm September. Early isn’t the best, in most cases, because it may mean inadequate “hang time” in terms of flavor maturity, unless the whole season was early. Late is a little scary because we can run into rain. A little rain doesn’t much matter, but heavy rainfall can cause rot, mildew, dilution… Some varieties are more susceptible than others.
So, we’ve got Petit Verdot – all three rows of it 
coming in Sunday and Syrah, probably, next week and we’re home free! Let’s hope Mother Nature continues to smile on us! Cheers!
Goosecross: The “Green Harvest”
Geoff does a show and tell on how and why clusters are often thinned as harvest approaches. Enjoy!
The grapes are changing color!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Fun fact by Nancy Hawks Miller: The grapes are changing color!
Related Content:
Did you enjoy this? Here are more Fun Facts from Goosecross Cellars.
A Year In The Vineyard
Managing a vineyard, like many of the most worthwhile things in life, is a labor of love. Before planting, the grower must make a thorough investigation of the soils and meso-climate1 on the site to determine what variety will perform best in that situation. He must select the various clones2 and rootstock hybrids3 to suit the inevitable variability of those factors throughout the property. He may decide to vary the vine spacing depending on the anticipated vine vigor, or lack of it, in different areas of the site.
After planting and training a new vineyard over a period of three to four years the grower is rewarded with his first small harvest. Once the vineyard is established, keeping the vines healthy is a year-round project. Surprisingly, the weather experienced in winter can have an influence on the timing, quantity and quality of the harvest to follow.
Winter
Grapevines are like roses in some respects. Once we have some frost in November they drop all of their leaves and go dormant for the winter. This rest is very important to vineyard health and performance in the following season. Like roses, the vines require severe winter pruning which will help to determine how many shoots and clusters will appear in the spring. Almost all of the growth from the previous season is pruned off, so that the vines will bear a small, intensely flavored crop.
If we have a long, cold winter, the vines “sleep in”, and come out of dormancy late. If the winter is mild, they’re likely to wake up (we call it “bud break”) early. Bud break is usually in the middle of March, but we’d much prefer that it be late than early. Early bud break increases the risk of frost damage. A beautiful, clear day in the late winter/early spring can turn into a freezing, cold night. The newly exposed, tender buds will be damaged if the temperature drops below 32° F. The risk lasts through about mid-May. This can lead to many nights of poor sleep for growers all over the valley. Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, may have to get up in the middle of the night several times during these months, to protect the vines from frost using wind machines4 and smudge pots5. The upside of early bud-break is that it can translate into an early harvest and reduce our risk of rain damage on the other end. It all depends on the weather that follows.
Spring
Early spring brings the period we call “great growth” in the vineyard, because the new shoots grow like gang-busters. We sometimes imagine we can see them grow! This great growth creates a lot of work, including weed cultivation and suckering6 or shoot thinning. The suckering is done by hand, and is like a post-pruning. We prune during dormancy with the idea that we’ll get certain results, but inevitably, the vines do as they please, and require more of our attention. Once the shoots are a few inches long, Geoff can begin walking the vine rows to make sure they’re developing well and also to look for signs of disease or nutrient deficiencies. This continues throughout the growing season.
The buds flower and form clusters around mid-to-late May. We are fortunate that the flowers are self-pollinating, so we don’t have to worry about bees or wind to carry the pollen. We only worry about the weather. Too much rain, high winds or excess heat can impair pollination. Again, we are fortunate because most years we go for months without rain after the end of April. The weather is blessedly boring and predictable most years, and generally leads to good “fruit set.”7 Once the crop is set, we count the clusters. Of course, there’s nothing we can do about too few, but if we count more clusters than we believe the vines can ripen well, we drop the excess on the ground right then and there.
Summer
When the grapes first form, regardless of the variety, they look like tiny green beads. They’re not recommended for tasting at that point because they’re highly acidic. They plump and develop amazingly quickly. Usually, by mid-to-late July, they’re 2/3 their full size, and the dark varieties begin to soften and change color (we call this veraison). White varieties like Chardonnay go through a much more subtle color change, going from a bright, spring green to more of a yellow-green as they soften.
During this time, Geoff continues to walk the vineyard to make sure it’s healthy, and he monitors the leaf canopy and clusters to see if we need to do further shoot, leaf or crop thinning. He takes leaf samples to do a “petiole (the leaf stem) analysis”, which just means he’s checking for nutrient deficiencies.
Irrigation may be necessary a few times during the long, dry season, but Geoff prefers to keep it to the minimum. Too much irrigation or fertilization may take away from flavor intensity. He can test the vines in different parts of the vineyard to see if they’re becoming water-stressed and respond accordingly.
Read more
Goosecross: Springtime Shoot Thinning
Geoff Gorsuch shows how and why shoots are thinned in the vineyard.
Cluster Thinning
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Fun fact by Nancy Hawks Miller: Cluster Thinning
Related Content:
Did you enjoy this? Here are more Fun Facts from Goosecross Cellars.
How We Make Our Estate Meritage
In 2002, we had to re-plant our home vineyard here at the winery because the Chardonnay we planted in 1978 was diseased. The phrase “crisis as opportunity” comes to mind.
After almost 25 years, we had a chance to take a fresh look at our property and re-evaluate what belongs here. It’s a process! We hired three different consultants to take soil samples and check the meso-climate1 throughout the site. Much to our comfort and delight, the three consultants came back with almost identical recommendations: Plant red Bordeaux varieties2.
What Is Meritage Wine?
With that decision made, Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, immediately thought about making a Meritage wine. A Meritage (pronounced like “heritage”) is a blend of Bordeaux varieties and so the wines are usually Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot- based (there are white Meritage wines, too, but they’re less common). Since varietal wines had been the standard of excellence here in America, the Meritage Association was created to distinguish hand-crafted, high-quality blends from simple red or white table wines or generic, so-called “jug” wines. Geoff wanted the freedom to blend the varieties together in the way he most prefers, regardless of varietal percentage. He takes the best our property has to give, and blends it into a beautiful expression of our vineyard site to make a single- vineyard, estate grown, Meritage blend.
Planting The Vineyard
We hand-planted lots of Cabernet Sauvignon, some Merlot, and small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Our consultants helped us select the various clones3 and rootstock hybrids4 to match the variability of the soil throughout the 9.5 acres. The vine spacing also varies, depending on the anticipated vine vigor, or lack of it, in different parts of the property. Before planting we re-graded, installed drain-tile and brought down the acidity of the soil a bit.
The vineyard is on the valley floor between the old Rector Creek and the Napa River-Conn Creek junction. Small as it is, the vineyard has been divided into 11 different sections according to variety, clone, rootstock, spacing and other variables. These sections are monitored separately regarding water, nutrients, canopy management5, and of course, harvest date. It’s a lot for Geoff to juggle, but it’s the only way to get the kind of results we’re looking for.
From planting the rootstock or benchgrafts6, it is 3-4 years to the first small crop. We think of the vineyard as mature when it is 6 or 7 years old, and hope that it will be with us for decades.
