I can’t believe how long it has been since I last posted! With our wine project, Estate 1856 Wines, rolling along and accumulating gold medals since the wines were released in late 2011, we have been busy making more wine, marketing wine and selling wine. Time just seems to fly when we’re having so much fun!

In the vineyards we had much better weather this Spring when compared to the last couple of years, bloom occurred successfully during great weather and set was closer to normal. The weather pattern in June and July seemed full of warm days and cool nights, with some temperature swings moving from 95 to 55 in just a few hours allowing the vines to rehydrate during the cooler nights.

The crew has worked in the vineyard consistently since after budbreak working to guide the canes into our VSP canopies. Luckily, we got an early start with shoot thinning and suckering, so those tasks were completed earlier than normal so that leaf thinning could be started early. The crew is now working their third pass through the vineyard lifting canes that the wind has shifted, removing persistent rootstock suckers, and monitoring our drip emitters for plugs and leakers.

We are now into the second week of veraison with our white grapes beginning to soften and our red grapes beginning to turn color. Wineries are beginning to call with their sampling schedules and we are beginning to bring out our harvest equipment to clean and repair for Harvest 2012!