Missoula Vinyard

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Thanks, Mike -

Hoping for at least 100+ pounds this year - then I can get one of those barrels like yours and really look like I know what I'm doing! :b
 
Things ARE looking good there Dave. This must be the year for considering barrel storage for the mini-grower - I'm thinking of buying my first one too. Kind of depends upon how much the various critters leave me:ft
 
Bill, your Foch are still doing well - covered in ice this morning, though!

"Hard Freeze" said the WX man last night so at 0400 it was 32 and forecast to go as low as 25*

Had to institute the "Florida Plan" - so on with the sprinklers on manual mode.

The first picture is at 0700 still in shade, but temp was 27* (and the low). The second and third pictures were at 0800 with the sun just beginning to hit the vines - and by 0900 it was 32 and now, 0945 is 37* and all is melting. High today is 67* and 70s through next week. Whew! :b
(Side note: This is a great 2 minute video on how we deal with this time of year - the local "Ten Spoon" winery of 15 acres is about 7 miles north and I could hear his helicopter - Andy uses the "California plan" - but he has more money involved in his! He also gets colder on that side of the valley. Said on the news last night he had 27* yesterday morning while we had 33.* See for a http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/ten-spoon-winery-uses-helicopter-to-save-grapes/28019550 )

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It is just too early for all this! Hope everything pulled through alright for you. It really coolded down here the last day- went from 80 in the afternoon yesterday to 46 this Am and will only be in the 50's and 60's for highs for a few days. That will slow down ripening.
 
Oh goodness. We lucked out here. I'm not worried about the grapes yet as I don't have a crop. But I have a big garden and need my tomatoes and basil in a couple weeks for a vine to dine dinner event. We dropped down into the 30's but no signs of frost yet. It skirted around our location.
 
I believe, with our late spring and this past frost, we "officially" had a 104 day growing season. But, the forecast for the next 10 days is good - this is what we are all working on - at least here on the margin. You can see from the info below, getting through that couple days of frost gives me at least 10-plus days of more "good" weather. I've been able to get the brix up to 22-26* in the past when I can pick as late as possible, and so that's what I'm shooting for!

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Flickers!

Thanks, Bill. With the production this year, I'm cautiously optimistic. But, as with golf, are there "wine gods" out there? And, are they laughing?

Yesterday, I heard a odd bird call in the front yard, then saw a flicker - FLICKER?! I went to the vineyard and one was INSIDE the netting on one row and as I quickly applied adverse conditioning (one firecracker!) I saw it running on the ground, then out the END of the netting where it was at one of the end-posts. (Flickers got into the nets last year - it might be these same two - and really hit me hard - I got a total of 15 bottles from last year's harvest!)

I spent the rest of the day checking and fixing small holes where the netting didn't quite meet at the end-posts and then anchoring a long, 20 foot section of netting where it didn't quite touch the ground on one side. This morning I haven't seen the little buggers but if my adverse conditioning doesn't work, I may have to resort to more drastic measures!
:gb
 
Well... we successfully got the flickers to go elsewhere - no dead little flicker bodies anywhere (cause that's a federal offense, you know) so rest easy you birders!

Wonderfully warm September weather after the hard frost, even up to 90* a few days ago. The cold front came in today, we harvested this afternoon, we crushed right after, and the rains came just as we finished the crush.

Brix's measured from a low of 14 on a poorly producing pinot vine (only a couple clusters) to 24-26 on some Foch. Highest Pinot was 21 brix, Leon Millot generally around 22-24 and the edelweiss was 17.8 but sure tasted sweet.

The average for all was 22.8, including the Edelweiss which we just threw in with the rest.

I was a little disappointed with the production, which ended up being only 70 lbs. so we'll get maybe 5 gallons if we are lucky. We crushed it within an hour of picking and will let it "cold soak" and then press likely on Wednesday.

jeriharvest14.JPG

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Good looking fruit you got there Dave! Looks like we both need to work on quantity for next year!

OilnH2O said:
Well... we successfully got the flickers to go elsewhere - no dead little flicker bodies anywhere (cause that's a federal offense, you know) so rest easy you birders!

Wonderfully warm September weather after the hard frost, even up to 90* a few days ago. The cold front came in today, we harvested this afternoon, we crushed right after, and the rains came just as we finished the crush.

Brix's measured from a low of 14 on a poorly producing pinot vine (only a couple clusters) to 24-26 on some Foch. Highest Pinot was 21 brix, Leon Millot generally around 22-24 and the edelweiss was 17.8 but sure tasted sweet.

The average for all was 22.8, including the Edelweiss which we just threw in with the rest.

I was a little disappointed with the production, which ended up being only 70 lbs. so we'll get maybe 5 gallons if we are lucky. We crushed it within an hour of picking and will let it "cold soak" and then press likely on Wednesday.
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Okay, I admit the basic pic for this label was just posted above... so it wasn't taken during 2013 - when the grapes for this wine were harvested, but it seemed so sickenly cute for my "first crush" with a new (thanks, George!) crusher destemmer that was purchased that year, that I had to include it. Of course, there have been several comments about whether the TITLE goes with the person in the picture... but you know, our memories begin to fail as we get older! :)
The wine was actually bottled a few months ago, but I just got around to the labels for Christmas... and it's a good way to pass the time this time of year. If I had a picture of the vineyard, it would all be covered in white... snow. But, days ARE getting longer, and summer's coming!

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grapeman said:
How does the wine taste???????
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Actually... surprisingly good! Surprisingly, because a few weeks after we bottled, we tasted one of the "last bottles" - which is actually the last two or three, and SWMBO looked at me and said... "That's not bad! In fact, it's good!" I think it's going to age pretty well - at least if it retains how it tastes now without the sharpness, it'll just get better.

I'll be interested in seeing what happens this year with our only-24-hours-on-the-skins, wine.

And yes, I guess "field blend" is as good a descriptor as any! It's 60% Millot, 25% Foch, 10% Pinot and 5% Edelweiss.

:dg(I'll have to come up with a good image for the '14 Field Blend labels!)

(BTW, Mike - I miss the "tramp")
 
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OilnH2O said:
Actually... surprisingly good! Surprisingly, because a few weeks after we bottled, we tasted one of the "last bottles" - which is actually the last two or three, and SWMBO looked at me and said... "That's not bad! In fact, it's good!" I think it's going to age pretty well - at least if it retains how it tastes now without the sharpness, it'll just get better.

I'll be interested in seeing what happens this year with our only-24-hours-on-the-skins, wine.

And yes, I guess "field blend" is as good a descriptor as any! It's 60% Millot, 25% Foch, 10% Pinot and 5% Edelweiss.

:dg(I'll have to come up with a good image for the '14 Field Blend labels!)

(BTW, Mike - I miss the "tramp")
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Congrats on the successful vintage.:db
 

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