Veraison

For those that read my blog, you find that I am either celebrating or complaining. A project is finally completed, or maybe a new mission has finally begun. There are several times during the year that get me all goosebumps though. Harvest time is obviously one of them, and personally I am very fond of budbreak for it signals the official start of the new year.

In between these however there seems to be just a never ending series of mundane tasks. Mowing, spraying, and of course weeding and more weeding. Add to this several prunings and a series of other tasks such as putting in a new vineyard with its poles, drip lines, wires, and plantings, and the summer seems to go by way too fast.

There is a time in the middle of the hot summer months though where, as a vintner, you wait for a particular time that signals that the conclusion of the growing months has now "been scheduled" in. That time is called veraison. It is the time when the pea-sized green grapes just start to change color, and bunches of grapes may be green, pink, blue, purple, and violet. A grape changing color can now be squeezed between your index finger and thumb to squirt out its juice, and if you dare you may now put one in your mouth to first start testing for those sugars that are all important in the fermenting process which ultimately leads to a nice wine.

At first these grapes are rather tart. Sugar levels are low, probably in the 2 to 5% range. But they will quickly climb up to a BRIX reading (that's wine talk for percentage of sugar) of around 15 or so. And then there starts the tease. Sugar content has a direct relationship to the alcohol that one can have in the wine, so with an alcohol content of 12% you are looking for a BRIX number that is twice this, or a 24.

But that number seems to be both elusive, and freighteningly easy to screw around with. Having raced up to a 15 level, it now just looks at you. Grape skins have already started to soften to allow the grape to expand and hold more juice, but this might easily turn into a nightmare should sunny days turn into a series of rainy ones. Grapes will suck up this new found moisture and play games with your forecasts and sugar content, all of a sudden reducing the percentage level of the sugar as the grape begins to bloat. Too much rain could lead to late season fungus, or possibly lead to skins breaking under the water pressure within the grape.

Our fingers are crossed however, hoping there isn't a sudden and prolonged weather change.  Sunny days are good for promoting an increase in sugar levels, and more times than not our prayers are answered. Diligence is still required however. Spray schedules must be adhered to, though as you get closer to harvest there is a time when you have to back off to make sure they are not present during picking. As these BRIX readings get very close to signaling removing the tons of grapes, all manually I might add, one eye is aimed at the sky deciding if rain is due which might accelerate the picking process.   Last year we picked 3 of our varieties a little early knowing Hurricane Irene was coming up the coast.

This has been a really hot summer, and unlike the weather the Midwest has had, where if you listen to RFD TV you hear alot about the drought they are having. We have had plenty of rain which has led to other problems aforementioned. Heat and rain, hanging humidity causes all sorts of spores to latch onto grape leaves and the fruit. Hence all the spraying we have done.  I know those into "organics" don't like the use of all these chemicals, but not using them is the quickest way of declaring surrender, and bankruptcy in the grape bussiness. For the most part we have adhered to a qualified schedule and our harvest should reflect our ability to stay ahead of many of the problems.

It is late in the afternoon on a Saturday as I write this. It is still 90 degrees outside and I am thinking it might drop a few degrees so I can go out and mow in between the rows.  Sounds like I have already messed up my grand plan I described last week that would have given me a change of pace and some personal time. Oh well. When the fields, and the grapes call, you must go.

Beauty and the Beast

Whenever you buy a "Dream House" there tends to be a blind eye as you go through a period of visualizing living in this stately mansion. Rooms are just too many to comprehend, hallways and doors make orientation just a bit confusing. You manage to avoid looking at things that will become fairly important and you miss things that add some additional charm and personality to the property.  No, I didn't find out that the plumbing doesn't work or that there had been an electrical fire. Neither of those things occurred. And it was abundantly clear from the beginning that animals owned by the previous owner were not kept very well, and after three months I have to some extent been able to remove their memory and territorial markings.

But these things take time to learn about, and right now Plan A is to put my efforts into the vineyard. However with that being said one needs time to just back away and change the routine or you will get both mentally and physically exhausted.

For a farmer, and I must accept that title, which is what a vineyard worker ultimately is, the work never really ends.  It is a sun up to sun down job. You never know exactly when it will rain to plan a day off from the fields, and even then there may be equipment repairs or other work that is required indoors even if nature is telling you to take a break.  What I have done is to redefine the weekend to see if I can bring some normalcy to my rigorous schedule.  I have decided to use the weekends to catch-up on required projects not yet finished from the week, and hopefully this may not extend beyond Saturday noon, and then spend the remainder of the weekend putting around the house by being Mr. Fix-it or just tackling a pet project. Of course there have already been major violations to this type of planning.  Mowing the lawn and between the vines takes about 8 hours in each of our two locations, and with the dew so heavy in the morning this generally is spread out over four days. If it has been rather rainy this could be a once a week affair.  The other "must do" assignment is to adhere to a spray schedule, which could be putting down fungicides or insecticides every 7 to 10 days.  My experience  has been that if this isn't followed you will really regret it by Japanese beetle onslaughts or black rot attacking the fruit.

So this may appear that there isn't much time in my weekend, but you make do.

One of my most recent projects was to recover the brick walks that surround the house and meander by the herb garden, old chimney, spring house, and backyard. As with all open bricks weeds find any little crack and grow, and after awhile you don't even know there is a brick path there. Some hard scraping though, digging the edges, and an ample application of Round-Up brings them back to life, and wouldn't you know it there is a hidden flower garden tucked in the corner of the yard with a reading bench should you want complete solitude, making exception to the bugs and butterflies that enjoy the flowers too.

With every ying there is a yang, and adjacent to this peaceful area there is a swimming pool, aptly called THE BEAST. This poor pool had been neglected and was full of green pea water and scum.. Local frogs and toads had taken up residency, and there is no doubt in my mind that if I accidentally fell in it might take a year to find my body.

We first went at it with the unusual hope that if you add enough shock treatment it would eventually come around. It wasn't the case however. Spending nearly a hundred dollars on chemicals, having the sand filter and pump work overtime, and manually skimming the surface only got us to make believing that we were making progress. It was time to surrender, and just pump out the water, all 35,000 gallons of it, and start over. Fortunately I had a new irrigation pump I could divert from its rightful purpose of watering the new grapes (we have had plenty of rain to balance out this assignment so I wasn't concerned)  and with a few simple hook-ups I put a 2" pipe down to the bottom of the pool and starting sucking up all the sludge.  As much as green pea & ham soup was a winter favorite of mine, it may be several years before I lose the memory of how this pool invited me to otherwise pleasant surroundings.

So now a simple task, where all I wanted was to jump in the pool at the end of a long hot day, had now developed into a major task. Drain the water, pressure wash the pool, scrub the insides with muriatic acid and TSP, paint the pool, refill, repair pool fittings, scrub the decks and repair certain concrete blemishes, and remove vegetation growing through the fence. This has now gone beyond a casual to-do list on a weekend. To be able to jump in my pool before Labor Day will be a major endeavor. But stay tuned......hopefully I can show you the results of being side-tracked.

Crooks,Compromise, & Crops

We are about a third of the way into the new season, and I am finally getting around to making a post. Skipping through the basic "we do it at the beginning of every year" stuff, I have decided to finally settle down and bring everyone up to speed on the oddities we have encountered this year.

In my transition piece I talked about finally selling my plastics business, and now I am down on the vineyard, and new homestead, full time. It allows me to at least make a solid effort in keeping up with the requirements of the vineyard, though I may never catch up since I had a late start beginning in mid-April. It also provides me opportunity to tie up alot of looses ends, and try to resolve issues as they come along, and there have been many.

One of the main things I had to devote some attention to was a year long battle with an ex-employee who decided to break in to my house and trash the place. To really make a long story short, he had just gotten out of jail (nice ex-employee, huh ?) on another matter, and having burned every bridge he crossed he was thrown out into the street without a friend or a dollar in his pocket. OK, he probably had a dollar, but whatever he had went to beer and smokes. At the time, and now we are talking in the Fall of 2010, I was on my odd schedule juggling work in Massachusetts with my farm duties, and he knew this. It made my house ripe for the entering. He ate my food (no big deal here yet), but he drank all my cooking wine which very quickly exited his system. Unable to control his bodily functions, having been off of booze for 6 months, he proceeded to mark the territory. What a mess.

Through my personal police work, getting DNA samples, and prodding our local police force to get a warrant issued, he was finally caught and "brought to justice".  I was issued a subpoena on a couple  of occasions to show up in court, but he rolled over like a dying mule when he saw we had him cold, and I was in the court to see that the proceedings went smoothly and never had to be called to testify.

One of the things that bothered me most was that he targeted my home, which I wasn't too pleased when knowing I was the only one who gave him a job, but also that the incident removed that nice, trusting charm of the rural south. I could go on and psycho-analyze the whole thing (well I did, I just won't bore you with it here) , but I'll just conclude this sad chapter saying I now subscribe to ADT. The time to get ADT is not after the crime is committed. Where have I heard that line before ?

In previous write-ups I talked about this year's plantings, and that didn't all flow so well either.  I wanted in the worst way to plant 1500 Gamays (think Beaujolais), but the graftings didn't take this past year so I had to change at the last minute to another variety, so I chose Malbec. This is another one of those Bordeaux grapes, which puts us at having 4 of the 5 being grown in our 2 vineyards. The only one we aren't growing is the Merlot, which everyone else seems to be growing since it was a major fad a short while ago. What this means is that there is plenty of this grape available to purchase should we decide to make a Merlot wine.

The Malbecs came mid-May and with the help of a couple of local young farmers we were able to bang in all the poles and then plant the Malbecs without any problems, albeit one major one. I had ordered 700 of the line posts and 90 of the end posts, only to get just the line posts. What is important about the end posts is that they are required to tie in the irrigation system. Without them all the drip lines and wires are just hanging without tension or hook-up. So far though we haven't had a problem with the weather. We have had plenty of rain and the Malbecs, as well as the newly planted Scuppernongs and our vines at the other vineyard are all doing well. We have had so much rain however that we are fighting black rot and powdery mildew which is a challenge every year, but more so this year.

Diane and I have close to 73 aces now, with about 10 in grapes. Doing quick subtraction it leaves us with about 40 acres that is considered farmable, and being a financially - centered guy I can't see having a resource doing nothing at all, so I lease the open land out.  This year I am working with 3 new farmers (not really new, new......they have each been in the business 30+ years) because I really pissed off the farmer I had previously leased to......but that is a blog entry all its own. So my other land is being used to grow peanuts, soybeans, and raise Angus cattle. It's all pretty cool stuff  if you are into farming, and I must say I've got the bug. 

That's the quick update. I have much more to catch up on, with the winery being designed and the new house getting a boatload of attention. But they deserve their own entries, so stay tuned !

Transition

The beginning of a venture as big as this one did not come overnight, and stepping off the cliff in a show of faith is a defining moment. After nearly five years, beginning with purchasing the land to plant our first vine, to now after years of trying to sell my business and finally doing so, I can say that I am now a full time vintner.

Officially I passed the keys on to new owners of my plastics business on April 2nd of 2012. And shy of providing some start-up assistance and being tethered to them via the phone and through email for a few months to offer advice, I have walked away from a business I started over 25 years ago to jump head first into growing grapes. The event was planned for quite a long time, and it was inevitable that there would be a time when the vineyard just took too much time for me to straddle two businesses.

Soon after Diane and I planted our first 2400 vines, I was spending a week a month at the vineyard doing minor upkeep work, but as the vines grew they demanded more and more of my time. Last year I really needed to be at the vineyard 3 out of every 4 weeks, but I was only able to be there half of every month.  When I returned to the land I played catch-up on the mowing, spraying, and pruning as best I could.  But I never really felt as if I had caught up, and when it was time for me to return North I didn't want to go. My work was not done.

Late last year we bought another farm, with the primary intent being to find the perfect spot for the winery to be built. Of course it needed its own vines to go along with the winery, and our plans began to add still more vines. All of this led to the final decision to pull out of Sheltech Plastics and devote my full time to my new 2nd life. When I drove away from the day to day rat race of manufacturing, I don't think I glanced into the mirror once. It had done me well and had run its course. My attention is now fully devoted to over 7500 vines.

I couldn't wait to pack the truck and head south. There was alot of things to clean up before I "disappeared" though.  Bills needed to be paid, things gathered to bring down that I might need. I was also in the middle of a grad course I was taking at Virginia Tech that had to be considered so that it wouldn't be interrupted. Sure there were plenty of things that needed to be done around the house, but I would be back sometime to knock them out; I would be motivated to sell the house at some point. What was the most odd was that I was leaving and not knowing when I would be back. I gave myself at least a month before I would give it any thought. I had so many things that had to be done before the new grafted vines arrived in mid-May sometime. Poles and wire, and drip-irrigation supplies had to be ordered. The task of setting everything up before holes were dug was monumental to say the least. There was certainly alot of planning, but the bull work ahead was daunting.

There was also the new old house that required attention. (see previous post) Moving in, getting all the services hooked up, getting some basic grounds work done. You don't grasp the number of little things you do to get a household running smooth until you are forced to do them all at once because of a move or relocation. 

The transition isn't fully complete however because Diane hasn't moved down yet. She is still tied to her job, and the house is still there. Until it is sold out from under her, and until the winery requires more of her time, she will still be a Northerner. In the eyes of our new neighbors, we will always be Yankees (not to be confused with the Bronx Bombers) but it is likely I will adapt to Southern ways before she does.

A Farm With A Name

2012 is starting off as a total rush. After months of looking at properties where we could build a winery that was near our vineyard, and after several false starts, we finally came upon a farm that answers nearly every want and desire for a new winery location. Just a short crow's flight from our vineyard, our new winery location will be at the White Oak Farm. As you drive up the long magnolia - lined driveway you look at a beautiful 1890's Victorian mansion that has been fully restored.  It nestles on a 40 acre plot of prime farmland where we will start expanding our vineyard this Spring by planting Gamays and Scuppernongs, irrigated by a spring fed pond centered between two fields; the back one being the home of prize angus beef cattle.

But there is more to this than just a house. There is a age old cedar planked barn with a full loft which we will convert to our tasting and gathering room, and an adjacent metal structure which used to be a helicopter hanger but will now be our state of the art winery and a lab for Diane.

Our architect is coming in this morning to review the property to start making design decisions so we can get the winery up and running in time for our Spring bottling and 2012 Fall harvest. We won't be open to the public for about a year after that. Though the buildings are there, there is so much to do in regards to basic internal restructuring. Electrical work, plumbing, you name it and it probably needs to get done.

And then the planning of the vineyard, getting the posts up, wiring for the drip lines, planting a couple thousand vines etc. Anyone who has been reading my blogs is familiar with the drill.

There is alot of history to this farm and house, and as we dig it up we'll share it on the blog. For a house to have a name, it must have stories to tell.

The End of Another Year

We're a full month into the New Year and I have decided it is time to wrap up last year, finally. What took me so long ?

In my last entry I talkd about our first crush, and for the most part you would think that would have wrapped up the year's events, but what it did was put in motion the requirements of the upcoming year. Crushing grapes is exciting once you get beyond the mess you make trying to become efficient with new equipment. It is the time when you begin to see the "fruits of your labor" in cliche terms. Of course it is apt to be topped by cracking open that first bottle of wine and finding out if all the time and labor transfers into a remarkable wine. We'll keep our fingers crossed on that one.

Diane was able to jump into the role as winemaker. It was the rude awakening that made everyone realize that this is what it was all about, and that the ball is now rolling and can't be stopped. She has 3 different wines in the stainless tanks now. These tanks being set up in a temporary facility on the farm, recognizing that they will need to be moved when the official winery is built. But for now it'll do and will serve us well in the short term.

In our little winery we have tanks that will hold 2700 liters of wine, which is the equivalent of 3600 bottles of grape wine. Next year we have to consider a growth pop in production, since this was really our pre-harvest year to get the process moving along and work out any bugs.  Though these tanks aren't anywhere near filled to capacity, we will still need to add another 4 large tanks adding maybe 40,000 liters to our operation. We won't be providing all the grapes via our own vineyard; we will need to buy a few varieties from other vineyards in order to round out our product offering. Our personal output should grow 10 - fold however.

With all that being said, the emphasis immediately following getting the juice in the tanks to ferment was to locate some land where we can build our winery and accept this level of expansion. For reasons that are just too confusing to fully understand the logic, we need to build this winery on a location other than where we are in order to meet some government tax requirement. So Diane and I went looking at land once again knowing in a very short year we needed to get a winery built, fully equipped to handle the harvest in 2012, and get government bonded. A big task in such a limited period of time.

And this is where the hangup (or at least my excuse) as to why I have delayed in posting to this blog. I wanted to go out with a "to be continued" story where the new winery, and its location, would take center stage. You would think that buying raw rural land in a buyer's market would be a painless endeavor. I can flatten that theory easily, because we tried to buy two pieces of property only to find Seller's issues that couldn't be readily resolved. We submitted Purchase & Sales, started the negotiation process on 2 occasions only to have them fall through. It took months of our time to get no where.

It is now very early February and we still haven't closed on a property, but we have identified one which might work out very well for us. But the deal isn't closed yet and like they say: "It ain't over till the fat lady sings....".

The scheduled closing is next Tuesday. Details to follow !!!