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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:
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!
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.
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Goosecross: Springtime Shoot Thinning
Geoff Gorsuch shows how and why shoots are thinned in the vineyard.
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.
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How We Make Our Estate Chardonnay
Wine making is so simple, it was discovered by accident. Fresh grape juice, unattended, will become wine sooner or later. But here’s the hard part: will the wine be any good? Science helps us bottle wine that is much more predictably sound than it was 100 years ago, but we can’t make memorable wine in a lab.
The real fun and art of winemaking lies in the endless variables that come up along the way. Where and how to plant? When to harvest? How to handle the grapes at the winery? What kind of yeast to add? What kind of fermentation vessel should we use? Which barrels to buy? It goes on and on.
We’re going to focus on the choices that Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, makes along the way to produce Goosecross Chardonnay every year.
Planting A Vineyard
Geoff will tell you that the wine can only be as good as the grapes that make it. There is no way to make a wonderful wine out of mediocre grapes, no matter how skilled the producer. Geoff’s goal is to get his hands on the best possible fruit and then to conserve the beauty of the fruit through attentive, but not intrusive, winemaking.
In our case, as a small, family winery, the winemaker is also the vineyard manager. Geoff is hands-on from the planting of the vines, every step of the way, until the wine is bottled.
You’ve heard the old real estate saw: “location, location, location.” Well, it truly applies in growing grapes for wine. Getting the right variety in the right location is 90% of the battle. We grow our Estate Chardonnay in the coolest region of Napa Valley, known as the Carneros Region. This is an ideal location for Chardonnay, where the grapes ripen slowly in the persistent morning fog, and cool evening breezes. The resulting prolonged “hangtime,” literally means that the Chardonnay has enough time on the vine to develop completely mature flavors and to delight us with a little tropical character. The soil is typical of Carneros, in that there is clay, but it is interspersed with some gravel and sand, improving drainage.
Before planting a vineyard like this, we bring in experts to take soil samples from various parts of the property, and also to measure the specific mesoclimate1 throughout the vineyard. With this information, we can make good decisions about selecting the optimal clone2 and root-stock hybrid3 for the site, and also set up the best spacing and row orientation for eventual wine quality.
For this site, we selected the low-vigor, SO4 rootstock in order to keep the yields down and flavors concentrated. A vertical trellis system4 in this location, running east-west, allows for plenty of light exposure to heighten fruitiness with very little risk of sunburn.
With these choices made, we lay out the posts, stakes and wires for the trellis. We dug the holes, planted and trained the vines and attached the trellis wires by hand. A drip irrigation system completes the installation.
From planting the rootstock or benchgrafts5, 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.
Oakville AVA
The Oakville AVA is home to some of the most famous names in Napa Valley – Robert Mondavi, Harlan, Rudd, Opus One and Screaming Eagle are well-known producers, there, and To Kalon and Martha’s Vineyard grow some of the most sought-after grapes in California.
History
The history of research and innovation in the region, which still thrives today, was instigated by Hamilton Crabb in 1868. The first “research station” in Oakville was Crabb’s To Kalon (Greek for “highest beauty”) vineyard, where he planted over 300 varieties. He purchased the 240-acre parcel in Oakville and, by 1877, he had over 130 acres of producing vineyard and sold cuttings to other Napa Valley growers. As the first commercial winery owner in Oakville, he was producing 50,000 gallons of To Kalon wine. Today, the University of California at Davis has a research vineyard in Oakville and Robert Mondavi Winery is renowned for its in-house research, part of it on the original To Kalon ranch. Crabb’s neighbor, Far Niente winery, began producing in 1885 and by 1887 over 1000 acres of vines were thriving in Oakville. In the long, arduous recovery from prohibition, the Napa Valley became the first AVA in America in 1981 and the Oakville District gained AVA status in 1993.
Location
Oakville is just about in the center of Napa Valley, and is about two miles wide, it’s borders clearly marked by the western Mayacamas mountains and the Vaca range to the east. From its northern boundary, where it meets with the Rutherford District, to its southern boundary, the Yountville District, is just over a mile. At about 5,000 planted acres, it represents about 11% of the total vine-acres in Napa Valley.
Soil
At first glance, the soils appear to be relatively uniform and well defined – a mix of various loams, especially clay, sand and gravelly loam. They’re mainly the result of weathered, broken down rock that washed down the two mountain ranges over the millennia to mix with the with the river and stream deposits of clay, silt and gravel. They rest on a base of gravel that promotes, generally, very good drainage and deep root penetration. A closer look reveals that the two ranges have little in common. The western Mayacamas were pushed up from the bottom of the sea as the valley floor sank, millions of years ago, bringing up a chaotic mix of ancient marine rock formations, sandstone, limestone, serpentine (California’s state rock!), shale and metamorphic rocks. The two large, famous alluvial fans at the base of the Mayacamas are composed of rock and loamy sediment that washed down during storm after storm over the millennia. The eastern Vaca range, rather than pushing up, was formed, layer by layer, by the deposit of repeated volcanic eruptions caused by fissures in the tip of the San Andreas fault as it was dragged north by the Pacific and North America plates. It left compressed volcanic ash (tuff or tufa – often exposed tufa), lava flows, volcanic mudflows, a variety of other pyroclastic deposits (fragmental pieces of rock, such as minerals or glass, spewed by the eruption), and sedimentary rocks of volcanic origin. Virtually every knob and knoll you see in Napa Valley is of the same volcanic origin. Oxidized iron accounts for the noticeably-red soils in much of east Oakville. Heavy rainfall over the Mayacamas may explain the large size of the western alluvial fans. The eastern fans are small and the soil thin by comparison.
Climate
Oakville is noticeably warmer than the neighboring Yountville District, to the south, and just a tick cooler than the Rutherford District to the north. Moving from south to north, the valley heat increases as it moves away from the marine influence of the San Pablo Bay at the southern end. Oakville residents often experience afternoon temperatures in the mid-to-upper 80 and 90s, F., in the height of summer. The heat of the day forwards the maturation of the slow-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon that dominates the district. As the heat rises, it eventually pulls in cool bay fog and breezes, and it’s common to see temperatures drop into the mid 50s at night. The fog often lingers until mid-morning the next day, preventing over-rapid sugar accumulation and retaining color and refreshing acidity. This is about as good as it gets for Cabernet Sauvignon. The west side of Oakville is exposed to heavy winter rains and is in the shadow of the Mayacamas, late in the day, in mid summer. The east side experiences lighter rainfall and receives the full impact of the afternoon sun as the day wears on.
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The Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter… It’s War!
It sounds like some new, secret, stealth airship. And in fact, it is. But the war isn’t a military one. It’s agricultural. And it’s being fought in vineyards throughout California.
The glassy-winged sharpshooter is actually an insect, about one half-inch long. It feeds on the water-conducting tissue of over 35 different kinds of plants and crops, including table grapes and wine grapes.
The feeding itself isn’t the problem. The problem occurs when the insect carries harmful bacteria, Xylella fastidiosa, that causes diseases in plants, including almonds, oleander and alfalfa among others. Certain strains of Xylella can also seriously affect citrus and stone fruits, but we haven’t seen them in California so far. For grapes it means Pierce’s Disease, an extremely serious problem.
Here’s how it works: The sharpshooter feeds on an infected plant, and then transmits the bacteria when it feeds on the next plant. The bacteria get into the grapevine and multiply, spreading throughout the plant’s system, blocking the movement of water, nutrients and minerals. Growth is stunted, the leaves dry and turn yellow and the fruit colors prematurely. Eventually, as the vine becomes weaker, the grapes won’t ripen.
Worst of all, there’s no known cure for Pierce’s Disease – the only solution is to rip up infected vines and replant. So avoiding Pierce’s in the first place is paramount to growers which means fighting the glassy-winged sharpshooter.
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NVWR® 77 – Vineyard Practices and Influence on Quality
January 20, 2009 by David
Filed under Napa Valley Wine Radio
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Welcome to Napa Valley Wine Radio! Thanks for listening!
Winemakers, Geoff Gorsuch, Jeff Booth, and Bob Pepi discuss vineyard practices & their influence on quality. Their discussion includes influence of yields, hillside vs. valley-floor vineyards and deficit irrigation, among other topics.
