Purple Cow Vineyards

1190 KEX interviews Purple Cow

Check out the radio story created by Jim McLaren that ran on 1190 KEX this morning.

2009 Growing Season Progress

Here is some fun data to look at.  It is the accumulated heat for May and June.  The orange line is this season.  It is the sum of the number of degrees the mean (average) temperature for that day exceeds 50oF.  Example: If the high was 70 and the low 50, the avg was 60 and you got 10 degree days.  It goes flat at yesterday's date since we don't have data for the rest of June yet.  Despite a slow start to the season, we have roared forward.  Now we're on pace with the warmest years of this decade.  The most interesting annecdote I can offer is that this year has not felt hot.  The graph is driven by warm lows more than hot highs.  I expect bloom to start on the 19th or 20th of June, about 1.5 weeks earlier than 2008. -Jon-

Growing Season Begins

Today is the day that the first bud broke out at the Cow.  Marechal Foch has decided to peek out and start working on another wonderful vintage.  Some of the Pinot Noir is wooly, as is the Tempranillo.  Muscat always likes to sleep-in, don't worry. 

On a down note, looks like we lost the majority of the Tempranillo we planted last year.  The weight of all that snow and ice seemed to be too much for baby plants.  We're working to get it replaced as soon as possible.

Here's to the hope of a fabulous 2009 vintage.

Resveratrol

It's hard to pronounce, hard to remember.  I find myself occasionally going to Google and not finding it because I mis-spelled it.  So let's post it here so we can all remember.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resveratrol

This is the stuff that we think plays an important role in the health benefits of red wine.  Read to find out more.  There's more than one hypothesized benefit.

Virtual Vineyard - Tempranillo in September

Veraison Complete

It was a long time coming.  Once it started it happened fast.  Thank you September weather.  If we can hold to the forecast and the trend of hot days and cool nights, it's going to be a great vintage.  I'll see I can talk Wendy into putting a photo with this soon so you can see for yourself.

Jon's reflections on the limits of simple weather models

If you're an Oregonian, what do you think?  Hasn't been a terrible summer, right?  Fair enough.  We use the Winkler Degree Day Index and it's about consistent with 2007, so while this may not be a vintage for the ages, we should know how to get through it.  Is that the stuff you're hearing?

Good theory and I was following it - I wrote the above based on my previous comments since I don't consult anyone's opinion on vineyard matters.  However, I just looked at our veraison situation in 2008 vs 2007 and it suggests that we're several days behind what I've many times called the most difficult year I've gone through.  So if we're accumulating roughly the same number of degree-days as last year, what's causing veraison to be late?

This year's weather exposes the weakness of the model.  We expect it to behave in a linear fashion, see x degree days, expect a certain maturity.  In years that have fairly low variability from the average temperatures, the accuracy of the model will be very high.  In 2008, we had one of the coldest springs on record, then an average+ summer which had some very high peaks (104) and low valleys (66).  I realize the story isn't even over yet, but that accounts for July/August.  What this has led to is a situation where you actually have fruit in September that hasn't turned color due to veraison, it turned due to sunburned berries.  Should I call Al Gore and apologize for my skepticism?

What drives the fact that we are looking at burned unripe fruit?  Let me try a horse racing analogy to describe my theory.  The cold spring caused bud-break to arrive 3 weeks late, something like letting all the other horses have a 3 second head-start.  We've been running at a good pace, better than average, and it's taken taken so much effort that something bad happened, like we were fined for being caught with an Emery board (is this still horse racing?).  Despite all the effort, the original handicap was never overcome.

I used to be a fan of a late spring (see earlier posts) just because I would avoid risk of frost.  Now I think my original viewpoint was overly obsessed with the raw data of the degree-day index.  Since we have roughly the same number of degree days right now as we did on this date in 2007, I would expect to see us completing veraison.  Since we're not, I must conclude that the late spring did more harm than I realized.

Having gone through it last year, I'm mentally prepared this year.  I don't believe this will result in poor wine, in fact it may be better for the longer hang time, and I'm satisfied with 2007 wines.  I know better what to expect, and experience matters when making important decisions (sorry Barack).  All we need are dry forecasts and lots of time, easy pickin's here in the North Willamette.

I will of course keep you "posted", -Jon-

Vineyard things NOT to do with your kids

Read this as a humorous story, not a horror story.  It is funny to look back upon now that everyone is fine and the wine is safe...

My girls love to drive my small blue Ford 1215 tractor.  It's easy to drive and pretty safe because it stops if you take your foot off the accelerator.  If one kid gets to drive, the other will cry non-stop until it's her turn.

So we finished bottling and wanted to bring some of the wine back to our place.  I got the little tractor out and hooked up a trailer to it.  I thought I'd let Kelsey drive over, but Kelsey bragged to Sophie so now I needed 2 turns.  I picked Sophie to drive over and Kelsey to drive back because there would be more care needed on the drive back with the wine load.

Sophie's drive over was ok.  We loaded up the trailer, Kelsey fires up the tractor,  everyone jumped on the back, and we got under way.  As we're heading down the hill, the tractor started slipping on the gravel.  It was being pushed down the hill by the overloaded trailer.  Kelsey did the intuitive, but wrong thing, which was to turn into the hill and step on the brake.  Good idea for a car, bad when you're already sliding and pulling a trailer.

So here we are sliding down a hill, and now jack-knifing.  I'm thinking about roll-over at this point.  Oddly, it was very quiet in the back, no one is even screaming or yelling foul language.  I decided to help Kelsey straighten out and jumped from the trailer to the tractor, but my foot didn't completely make it before the 2 heavy objects crashed together.  With my toe pinched between the tractor and trailer, I could not reach the controls, but did have Kelsey's attention.  She followed directions very well and turned back to straight downhill and stepped on the gas to run ahead of the trailer.  That released my foot and stopped the sliding.  No broken bones.  Definitely learned to cut back on the children operating heavy equipment except in more controled situations.  Kudos to Galo for the excellent triage medical work.  -Jon-

The Tractor is back

How long was it?  I'll have to check the previous post.  Seems to be working.  Many thanks to Alfredo at Apolloni Vineyards for letting us borrow their rig during our down time.  It certainly saved us from an outbreak of all kinds of diseases through that warm and humid phase we had over the past couple weeks.  -Jon-

Tragedy Strikes - Tractor goes down, again

Our tractor has 41 hours on it.  It hasn't even had it's first regular service yet.  However, it's on it's 3rd or 4th IRREGULAR service.  This is the first problem of this year.  Honestly, if I thought we'd be in the service department all the time, there's some sleak euro-models I would have taken more seriously.

Having your tractor ready at all times is the top priority of a vineyard.  Every 10-14 days, we must spray the vineyard to prevent disease.  One cannot spray in rain or certain other weather conditions, so you must always be ready when the opportunity comes.

There's some speculation that the service department where I bought it might have made some mistakes.  They'll not comment on it, which I understand.  As long as they get me back in action fast and pick up most of the tab, I will be satisfied.  Maybe they'll loan me a fancy upgrade.  One can always hope.