Recent content by RonObvious

Thanks for the reply and the link. I'm leaning strongly toward Watson. It would be a challenge to convert the rows to VSP. What's more, as our Marquette/Aromella on Watson experiment gets further and further into the season, I'm loving it more and more. I won't render a final opinion until...

Snafflebit is spot on. Grapes are nitrogen-hungry - some varieties more than others. I had chlorosis in my Marquette, but not in Petite Pearl or Seyval Blanc in adjacent rows. I used a conservative amount of ammonium nitrate for quick-acting effect and also organic nitrogen fertilizer for...

I love Seyval Blanc, but I'm starting to wonder if top wire cordon is really the best management system for it. We have a lot of vines similar to the one pictured below. If you look on the right side, you can see we have dutifully tied a cordon to the top wire, but the shoots on that cordon...

Thanks everyone. I'm putting in an order with A&J. Gonna give the Watson training system a try for my Marquette and Aromella.

I'm looking for the type of V-shaped crossarms used in this video: Anybody know where I can get them? I can't seem to find them online anywhere. Linde Vineyard Supply has a photo of something similar on their website, but I reached out to them and they don't stock them anymore. Thanks in...

I've had similar experiences as yours. I think Marquette will always feature prominently in our vineyard, as it grows abundantly and produces beautiful wine. Ours tends to be a little more exotic than others I've tried - I'm not sure if this is our "terroir" speaking or something we're doing...

Those look fine to me. The little dots are lenticels. Perfectly normal.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I swear I can taste StarSan, even when mixed at the proper ratio and even when fully drained. I stopped using it a long time ago for that reason. I use sodium percarbonate for heavy duty disinfecting, but it's VERY alkaline and oxidizing, so I follow it up with a...

I love Marquette and drink it regularly (both ours and what I can occasionally find from other wineries). It definitely has a pronounced nose to it when young, but I don't think of it as "foxy." To me, it is more exotic than that - I always think of men's cologne, maybe vaguely Drakkar...

We grow Marquette and I love it, but it is definitely low in tannin. We're still dialing in our Marquette recipe so I'm not sure I have a definitive answer for you yet, but my overall impression is to let it be itself. Don't try to make it into something it isn't. The first few years we made...

I think the more scientific way to approach it would be to run them all separately. That way, you'd be able to taste them all individually, judge their potential contribution, and blend as desired. Then again, some people like to live on the wild side and field blend. I don't think the grapes...

For single-carboy batches, I've always used Wyeast 4007 and never had a problem. I do not stir.

We harvested our PP yesterday. 400 ft of vines yielded about 350 lb of must. I didn't weigh it - I'm just guesstimating. It would have been more, but we had loss due to birds this year. Fortunately, the bird damage to the PP was only modest because it enters veraison later than other...

Well it's confirmed (at least to my satisfaction) that the damage is due 100% to birds. We spent most of the weekend up at the vineyard. The Seyval was ready to pick. Marquette numbers were a little shy of where we would want them to be but we can Chaptalize, so we harvested 1 row. The net I...

OK, thanks for the confirmation - sounds like a pretty open and shut case of birds. I guess we learned our lesson the hard way. Next year... nets. Though I'm already not looking forward to it. Nets with VSP look relatively easy to roll up and down but we have our Marquette and other hybrids...