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I have a couple Pinot Noir vines in San Diego with some early red clusters. Brix measuring at 15. My other pinot vines have all green clusters still. Once brix hits 24-ish on these clusters should I just freeze them until the rest of the vineyard catches up? John

Hey everyone, I'm here in Southern California on my second year growing from dormant bench grafts (Cab Sav 101-14) training them to be VSP. Following Jeff Cox's advice, after the first year I pruned off all but the best cane which reached the bottom wire, and left only 5-7 buds for this years...

I'm making my first fresh grapes batch. 108 lbs of Lodi Cabernet. About a 10 gallon must. Starting brix 23.. pitched the yeast 7 days ago. Fermentation reached max temp 85 deg. Last 3 days have read 0 brix on the hydrometer. Problem is that everything I read says that "Dry" is -1.5 or -2...

I have the WE eclipse Lodi old vine Zin in a carboy for about 3 months so far. Just took a sample last night and it tasted great! However, it still has a strong yeast smell, something that smells of homemade wine. I've notice commercial champagne has some essence of this but not as strong. How...

Does this look like any sort of problem or identifiable disease? The grapes are zin and pinot noir, in southern california costal region. They are first year grafts on 101-14. I have grapes in other parts of the property which are doing great. Makes me think this is perhaps bad soil or water...

When making RED wine (cabernet sav) from fresh grapes is it advisable to do "cold soaking" or "soaking"? This is where you leave the crushed grape skins in contact with the juice for a few days before adding the yeast. I assume Kmeta is added to prevent spoilage during the soak. The...

I almost had a heart attack when I saw this guy coming out of a hole in one of the rows. He's about 5 feet long. We've got a big gopher population so after I calmed down a bit I realized I like him! :hug

I'm getting ready to bottle my second kit - Winexpert Eclipse Lodi Zin w/ skins. It's only been a month in the carboy but I want to bottle because I feel it would do better in my 160 bottle wine cooler than the closet. What's the perfect temperature to set the wine cooler at considering I'm...

Many of my Pinot Noir and Zinfandel have stopped growing. They appear to have been "frozen" in time. Some are even "stuck" at bud break .. like a popcorn kernel just popped but then no shoot. Does this look like powdery mildew? What can I do to control it and bring them back to life? Seems...

Well I'm giving this vineyard thing a try. I'm about 3 miles from the ocean as the crow flies in San Diego, CA. Just far enough to rarely get marine layer, and get lots of 75-80 degree days. I put 31 vines in the ground (8 pinot noir, 9 zinfandel, 14 cab sav) about 8 weeks ago. We've got heavy...

I just planted in 8 new Pinot Noir (101-14 graft) vines in Southern California. Well, we had an early spring this year and all of them had bud break three weeks ago except for one. I'm watering about once a week since I planted them bare root only 6 weeks ago (in clay soil.) Is there any...