It's a Grape Life

Snow and more Snow!

3/8/2019

Here in Wisconsin we are known for our winters. We are certainly living up to our reputation. After a record breaking snowfall in February, we are expecting at least 2 more snowstorms in the next week - here at the height of our pruning season! Not only is the snow getting to be old news, every weekend that passes puts me further behind in pruning. By my calculations, I need 8 weekends of hard work to complete the fine pruning which hasn't yet begun. Luckily, our vineyard helpers have already made great progress with the gross pruning, which is almost complete. The goal is to complete pruning before the buds appear, since they are very fragile and can easily be knocked off.
I may need to buy some taller boots and get busy..........

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A New Season

1/23/2019

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There is nothing like the promise of a new year. The winter gives us time to ponder what went well and what didn't in the past year. We have time to look at nursery catalogs (dangerous ground for me) and think about what we want to do this year.
So, our plans are to plant a new variety of grape for the purpose of keeping options current to offer to our customers. The vines have been ordered and we have identified the rows which will be replaced with the new variety - the current property doesn't have room for much expansion of the vine blocks without infringing on other plans.
Then we will improve upon our orchard planting, making it impervious to the deer who seem to be bent on keeping our trees from making it to maturity. The improvements will see an organized electric fence around the block and the addition of several new trees since we are confident we can win the maturity race. We are excited to have found an apple variety at a local orchard last Fall that we love. Then we were able to locate a nursery in New York state which carries that variety, along with several other types of trees we want to include - apricot, cherry and plum. We also want to have elderberry and cranberry in our planting to make sure we have a wide variety.
Finally, we have a covered concrete patio planned to have a more permanent place to enjoy events and meals. We hope you will get to enjoy it with us soon.

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Harvest aka The End of the Marathon

9/15/2017

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Tomorrow it begins.
Actually, it began back in March. 6 months of watching every weather forecast and planning every spare moment not spent at our paying professions or on family times and celebrations which just won't wait. Months of watching the budget because there are tons of things to spend money on to care for the vines and improve the place, but no income until the end.
Now we are ready - in spite of wind and rain and birds and deer and bees and wasps and cold weather - and the fruit hangs beautifully waiting to become something even better.
All that is left is preparing a nice meal with drinks, some thank you gifts and and a wine tasting to thank our generous Volunteers who will give up Saturday or Sunday (or for some, God bless them, both!) to help us bring in the harvest.

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Verasion

8/11/2017

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A French word for the onset of ripening or literally, "a change of color of the grape berries". In the vineyard it means so many things:

- the beauty of the changing colors on the berries makes it the most beautiful time of year;
- it is time to start measuring chemistry to gauge how quickly the berries are ripening. We relay this information to our buyers so they can help determine berry readiness to make wine;
- it is time for full on bird control - nets, noise and anything we can muster to convince them they don't want to be here;
-time to plan for harvest by estimating dates, encouraging volunteers to join us, making sure the equipment is ready; and
- that we are close the finish line of this seasonal marathon!

We will put on nets this weekend - the rush to hedge the vines a last time is on. Family and friends will join us to make an afternoon of securing the side nets over the rows with c-clips. Then we'll barbeque, as the weather is moderating and making it very comfortable to hang outside. I look forward to these times - working shoulder to shoulder with some of my favorite people. It was how DuWayne and I decided this was worthy work - harvesting grapes at a local vineyard. Hopefully the weather will be as nice as they forecast.

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It could be a very good year....

8/4/2017

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We celebrated our first wedding on the property in June. It was fitting that it was our Son and his beautiful bride, which made it worth all of the extra time spent trying to make things as nice as possible. The driveway needed work, so it was graveled all the way down past the vines. Then the fire pit looked unfinished, so it was graveled also. There was lots of mowing to do and an unsightly container to paint. After the container was all one color, we added their initials in big, foam letters, which almost made the container seem like it belonged there - almost.

Everyone had so much fun. That made all of the preparation worthwhile and made us think this would fun to do with others looking for a relaxed place to have a celebration or just enjoy time with a special person. More about that later.

During all of the festivities, the rain and sunshine have been regularly making the vines grow before our eyes. We have to work on managing vine vigor. The number of clusters hanging out there almost makes me nervous. So, we are hedging and preparing for the bird fight to make sure our Customers wind up with this harvest. Nonetheless, things are looking on track for our largest harvest yet. The vines are mature and, aside from being windblown, are it great shape. This is an exciting time.

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Wine Thief

2/15/2015

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We like to check out what great ideas other grape growers and wine makers are using - you can follow our experiences on Emerald Vineyard's Facebook page.

So, yesterday we learned what Timothy and the team at Next Chapter Vineyard and Winery are doing with thieving wine in their tasting room.

We met Jackie (Timothy's Daughter) at a local foods event in Rochester, Minnesota, earlier this year and found her enthusiasm for their venture exciting. So, when we had the opportunity to get tickets for their Valentine's Day dinner and wine tasting, we were excited.

Next Chapter is a "boutique winery crafting barrel-aged elegant wine in Minnesota" (quoted from their website). After tasting a couple of their wines which had already been bottled and sampling some local cheese and crackers, we were turned loose to help ourselves to thieve wine (unlimited!) from any of a dozen varieties of wine barrels labeled with variety, age, alcohol content and tasting notes.

We have seen a wine thief used, but have never used one ourselves and we were like kids in a candy store - what fun!

We also enjoyed a "virtual tour" (it was 4 degrees below zero) of the vineyard and a nice dinner of Chicken Marsala catered by a local restaurant.

An informative conversation with Timothy gave us some really great ideas about controlling disease in the vineyard - more on that in another blog.

We think thieving your own wine, along with a great staff, makes Next Chapter an experience we definitely we want to do again. We'll head back when the weather warms.

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It's a Grape Life....

Snow and more Snow!

A New Season

Harvest aka The End of the Marathon

Verasion

It could be a very good year....

Wine Thief

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