Recent content by Mike89T

Going for a Tavel style Rosé. My daughter helped me crush and after 2 days in the bucket with skins I pressed and removed the skins. Didn't get as much juice as I had hoped but it should make at least one bottle. :dg

Yeah when you prune in the winter leave the main ones that you want as "trunks". Then you can train it as necessary as it grows in the spring. Here is what I did with my vine which has 2 main trunks. I trained the two main vines all the way up to the top of my patio and then cut the tips...

Holy Cow! I had maybe 5lbs and it took me almost 15 minutes. I couldn't imagine doing 200lbs by hand!

We have gotten hit by a few Monsoons in Phoenix over the last couple of weeks. Even had one with some small pea sized hail. However since I used paper bags to prevent the birds from getting to my grapes the bags also seemed to protect the clusters from the hail. So I guess I lucked out.

Ooohhhh NICE! Almost time to get it all dirty! I got to destem by hand yesterday and then used my fists to crush the small amount of grapes I was able to harvest. I'm going old school.

my big red flame table grape vine is going strong and has a trunk as big as my forearm. However I didn't do any bird prevention on it and lost all of the grapes. My 1 Muscat is doing really well. Got about 3 pounds of grapes off it this year. I have 1 tempranillo going strong and...

My first harvest After 3 years I finally got my first very small harvest of wine grapes. Lost most of my vines to the excessive heat but 2 vines have done pretty well. My older Muscat I have been able to bring back to life. It is producing really well. Also one of my Tempranillo vines is doing...

First you probably should purchase vines that have been grafted to a hardy root stock. Second it's almost impossible to give you advise unless we know where you live. I'm guessing Florida but need to know for sure.

This will be year 2 on the grapes. I cut them all the way back last december and will be growing the main trunks this year. They get about 30 gallons a week during the hottest part of the summer.

Thanks! Spent a lot of time trying to get them just how I wanted. I'm really happy with the final product.

And the rear label:

Finally bottled my first batch of wine! Sorry about the poor photo quality. I used my cell phone to take the pictures late last night. The labels look way better in person.

Pruned my vines over the Christmas break. Several of my new vines didn't grow long enough to make a main trunk out of this year. So I decided to start all of the main trunks over this year to keep things uniform. All of the vines have healthy looking buds. Can't wait to see year 2 growth! Also...

I was wondering if any BBQ fans would notice that. I still haven't put it away from the St Louis Style Pork Ribs I cooked last weekend. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. :try

Yep. The vines here in the desert take a ton of water.