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Hello Everyone! I've had quite the mild 2020 winter her in Northern Illinois. It was great to have so little winterkill to clear out this year compared to last years brutal temperatures. Unfortunately, in keeping with last yer I'm staring down a night of 29 Degree weather coming up this Friday...

This is most unusual. I came out the other day, and one of my Vidal Blanc vines that survived the winter suddenly started wilting. It is in a row of other Vidal. All of the vines suffered severe bud loss from the -38 F night we had, but the ones that survived are looking healthy with minimum...

Followed by a night of sub 32 temperatures. I'm thinking all of the primary buds are toast...

To my fellow cold climate growers. I'm staring down -50 windchill in two days. Ambient temperature is supposed to get to a low of -26. I have pretty good wind breaks in trees and structure around the vineyard, but I don't think I'll be lucky enough to avoid the worst of the cold. I've seen some...

So because I was negligent (Missed a few flowers when clipping), a few of my Itasca plantings this year ended up with mature fruit on them. I couldn't help myself once they got to a certain point and didn't clip them off. I just pulled them in today: 22 Degrees Brix 3.38 pH 7.8 g/L TA Looks...

I know that Frontenacs are vigorous, but I wasn't expecting them to push out shoots with 4 clusters on them. I've read mixed things about cluster thinning, some saying that it has limited effect on fruit quality and vine health, and others saying that fruit quality and vine health are at risk...

Hello! I made my first batch of wine with another guy in my platoon while I was deployed to Ar Ramadi Iraq in 2005. Alcohol was forbidden, so of course everyone wanted to get some. We mashed up a bunch of fruit and sugar that we had managed to scrounge up, and tossed in some brewer's yeast...