Casa Adobe Vineyard

ropewalker

Member Since:

March 15, 2012

Junior Member

INFORMATION

Trellis Design

Vsp w bi-directional cordons.

Grapes Planted

Barbera VCR15 & 19 on 101-14M

Pesticides

Sevin, neem, insecticidal soap

Acres Planted

1/24

Number of Vines Planted

Year of First Plant

2008

Row Spacing

6 x 6

Cases Per Year

URL to Forum Thread Where you Discuss Vineyard

www.cooksplace.us

City

Tucson

State

I am growing grapes in Tucson, AZ, where summer temperatures can exceed 110 for weeks at a time. I chose Barbera because of its heat tolerance and high acidity.

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10 COMMENTS

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TxBrew

Posted:

April 2, 2012 • 09:14 PM

Thanks for adding, have any photos you can share?

ropewalker

Posted:

April 3, 2012 • 01:00 AM

Sure, how much room do you have? :-)
I posted a few from last year (3rd leaf). This year, I will let more clusters stay on, but I may still drop some fruit to keep the crop-load down.

Brett

Mike89T

Posted:

April 3, 2012 • 02:39 PM

Brett,

Nicely done! Wish I had the space to put in that many vines. I'm just up the road from you in the Phoenix area.

Mike

TxBrew

Posted:

April 3, 2012 • 05:18 PM

@ropewalker UNLIMITED! lol

Again thanks for sharing with us.

ropewalker

Posted:

April 4, 2012 • 10:59 PM

@Mike89T
Have you heard of AZWinemakers? It's a club we started, with members in both Tucson and Phoenix. You can check us out at azwinemakers.com. There's also my own website: cooksplace.us.
I included some photos of the
vineyard, and a write-up on growing vines in the desert.
You might also check out Greg Gonnermans website on growing in the Phoenix area: http://www.goldminemtn.com/

Cheers!

Mike89T

Posted:

April 6, 2012 • 11:25 AM

@ropewalker

Yeah I'm on the email news letter and have emailed back and forth with Greg a few times about growing grapes here in Phoenix. However I haven't had a chance to make it to a meeting.

Mike

mourvedre

Posted:

July 11, 2012 • 08:00 PM

I enjoyed this posting. (see mine at Cruz Way Farms) Like you, we experience a lot of heat in our "high desert" of southern California, though we do get the marine influence fogs in May and June. We also experience
prolonged periods of 100+ heat and picking heat-tolerant varieties is crucial. We have Barbera too and it is gorgeous here; does really well, and the wine it makes is delicious. It's very high acid though and it's a race to get
the acid and sugar right at harvest. Some Portugese, southern France and hotter Italian varieties are the way to go in places like yours (and mine). Nice job. Your fruit looks pristine.

ropewalker

Posted:

July 12, 2012 • 12:07 AM

I use netting to keep the birds away from the fruit (otherwise, I'd have none). Disease pressure isn't too bad yet. Water is my biggest concern - about 25 gal/vine/wk.
I'm still working out how to tell when to harvest. My average
sugar is about 16B right now, not including the green berries. Acidity still tastes good, but I'll have to check pH/TA soon to be sure. What do you look for?

mourvedre

Posted:

July 17, 2012 • 04:10 PM

We look for Brix of about 25.5-27.0 (per contract) in our Barbera. A TA of 0.55 - 0.90 is ideal. (Brix trumps acidity though.) We harvested our Barbera on 8/28 last year and 9/18 the year before. Brix,pH,TA was 26.2,3.21,1.22
last year and 25.2,3.25,1.00 the year before. The TA of 1.22 last year compared to TAs of 0.68-0.80 in our other 4 grape varieties shows the typical high acidity of Barbera. A couple of "balance" measurements to
include both sugar and acid are Brix:TA ratio (30:1 to 35:1 is nice) and brix x pH squared (whites at 200, reds at 260 desireable). Last year the Barbera had balances of 23.7 and 270. Not ideal, but that's what adjustments
during winemaking are for, and numbers are never "ideal". Sometimes you just have to pick.

ropewalker

Posted:

July 17, 2012 • 08:36 PM

Wow, those are good numbers. Thanks for sharing.

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