Hampton Roads Vineyard

Our First Crush

2011-10-06T04:47:00.000-07:00

It is the end of another season.

Having taken the grapes off the vines for two of our varietals, we were left with only one more to pull and start down the path towards being a pleasureable wine. The hurricane had forced us to pull our Seyval Blanc and our Cabernet Franc a little early, but the sugar content was good at the time and the acid levels were within range. It left us with just our Viognier and our Nortons to harvest, which were no where near ready when the winds hit.

You can imagine that the humidity levels were high for quite awhile after the storm, and it was predicted that our Viognier would be taking a big hit from phomopsis (a surface fungus) because of it. Our Norton though hung tough, being a thick-skinned American grape that has been known to take alot of abuse. The Nortons held firm against Irene, but the Viognier was a complete loss.

Diane came down with me on this trip, and the two of us spent an entire day picking the beautiful dark blue bunches of Nortons from their canopied vines. Even the vines that had been blown over still had plenty of bunches we were able to salvage, though the turkeys fed themselves well in our absence.

We were now pros at this, having 2 previous crushes under our belts from just a few weeks earlier, so we were able to jump right in and start the winemaking process without skipping a beat. First they went through the destemmer-crusher which sent the skins and juices into the MagnaCube for a 24 hour sit. Then pressing once again to remove the skins from the meat and juices. With Nortons we had only to have the juices sit for a day to obtain the deep red color of a traditional red wine. Any longer the color would have become more of a solid reddish-black. And then into the tanks for Diane to start monitoring and tweaking for perfect balance.

One of the things Diane did this time around was fabricate oak chip bags. Since we had only stainless steel tanks for our fermentation, Diane wanted to add a little oakiness to the flavor profile, so she made huge tea bags, filled them with oak chips, and suspended them in the tanks to allow the oak to transfer certain tastes. It is a neat trick, and one that is gaining more favor in the industry since the price of oak barrels is outrageous......for a French Oak barrel the cost is $800 to $900 for a barrel that can be used maybe for 4 or 5 years. Oak chips allows a winemaker to either offer the crisp profiles provided by the stainless or the more buttery, vanilla profiles attributed to oak.

The week was capped off by our traveling up to northern Virginia to pick up some items Diane bought at a winery auction we attended on our trip down a week earlier. Remember the Salahis ? They were the couple that crashed Obama's State Dinner a year or so ago. Needlesstosay, their notoriety from that and the T.V. spot on Housewives of DC couldn't save the winery and vineyard from going under , so its contents were up for auction in early September. All auctions are a grab bag. Many items were in disrepair, others were strictly tied to his methods of doing things. Money was rampant at the affair, and though everyone walked away with some deals better than others, we were amazed at how much stuff went for 80 -90% of new retail cost. Though we didn't walk away with some larger stainless tanks that we wanted, we did purchase 9000 little blue bottles that Diane thought would be good for samples and gift selections. We also picked up a skid of caps, some of which we can use on these bottles but others included nearly 1000 plastic champagne corks.....anyone have a use for these ? (we don't).

You can only imagine how much room 9000 bottles (187 ml) takes up, so we rented a truck and spent the day returning to the Oasis Winery, loading the truck, and coming back home. The truck was unloaded the next day in the pouring rain, which pretty much was the sign of weather to come for the entire next week.

After the weeks were behind us, we had to stand back and just look at the chaos we have brought into our lives. The mini-wiinery we set up was full already, having 6 tanks ranging from 100 liters to 1000 liters in size, all the bottles of course, various processing equipment, and this huge MagnaCube. We have started the ball rolling, and for the most part there is no turning back. The hard work on the new wines is behind us, and though they will require some attention during the next 6 months, there is very little that Diane and I can do but wait and see how our first vintages turn out. It is what we have working towards for the last 5 years.....it is not a process that provides instant gratification, and still doesn't.

Winter projects are now to be completed in the months ahead, and with another expansion of Gamays and Scuppernongs in the Spring there is alot of work to be done. We are also trying to decide where to put the winery now that we have pretty much ruled out building it on our current vineyard site and building on an adjacent piece of land is not an option. Our plans have been pushed back a little, now that we have a better grasp as to when our wines will be ready and the time table associated with the winery building.

We are now hoping for a Grand Opening in the late Summer / Fall of 2013.

Pressing Business

2011-09-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

When I left off at the last blog, I had dreams of looking through the crosshairs of my crossbow scope aimed at the well-fed turkeys leaving my fallen Nortons. My desire to put a turkey on my Thanksgiving table subsided however when I returned to the mini-winery and looked at the work that still needed to be done, and the lack of tools to do it.

We were still without power from Hurricane Irene's onslaught, but the Cabernet Franc had already spent a day sitting on the skins and was ready to be pressed. The bladder press worked its magic using just water pressure when we did the Seyval Blanc, but in the country this pressure can only come from one's own well operated by.....you guessed it.....an electric pump. Without disaster foresight and a good backup plan which no doubt would have had us well-equipped with a hand cranked basket press, we were at a loss as to what to do.

Stomping on the grapes is an obsolete idea, with its time long past, except for those of course that want to reenact the old world custom. The only thing we could come up with on short notice was to use a set of colanders and squeeze the grapes in between two of them, allowing them to release the juices but encapsulate the skins for disposal. Which left us with the next small hurdle.....who has 2 of these things lying around ? Even good devout Italians don't have two in the house.

So off we went to Smithfield in search of an open store that sold these things, and fortunately the local Dollar Store was open for business. Apparently Smithfield had gotten all its power back and was doing business as usual. Dollar Stores, Dollar Generals and the like seem to be prevalent in the south. Along with a gas station, the convenience dollar store is a necessity in any small town. Cheap stuff, a minimum of food items and a compact answer to a grocery store makes them perfectly suited for rural areas where needs are immediate, distances to metro areas are huge, and money is scarce. And they carried spaghetti strainers.

After driving the 15 miles that it took us to get back to the house, Diane and I proceeded to give the "new press" a try. With a small bucket we reached into the MacroBin and scooped some grapes, dropping them in one colander. Placing the 2nd colandar over the first, we started to squeeze the two plastic strainers together while holding them over a bucket, and with only hand strength and later finger pressure we started to obtain our future wine a little at a time. It took forever.

Unlike before, the wasps seemed to want to leave us alone during this painstaking process. I think they got tired watching us, or maybe they realized that the skins, later tossed into our compost heap on the other side of the farm were just plain easier to deal with.

A couple of hours later we were done, but now we had to consider clean-up. One cannot believe how grapey everything gets. Purple fluid everywhere, grape skins stuck to any surface available, and just an absolute stickiness on anything you've touched. With pressurized water this clean-up is a simple affair, but how about without water ? Fortunately we are adjacent to a creek, and after dragging buckets up an embankment we had enough to start throwing it at all of our tools and equipment, scrubbing between tosses to help rid of residue, built up grime, and overall yuck.

Was it really clean ? No. Obviously using creek water has its limits, and when we return to the farm and before we use the items again we must truly clean them with soap-equivalent solutions(metabisulfate most likely) .

Our work was completed for now. It was time to think about dinner and ready ourselves to head home once again. We had, in spite of the hurricane made significant progress in this, our first harvest. We hope we did the right things, under all the circumstances, to produce good wine during the coming months. Only time will tell. We looked forward to our return in a couple of weeks to begin the process again with the Viognier and the Nortons.

As we walked into the house, the power came back on.

Earthquakes, Hurricanes, and Pestilence

2011-09-06T11:42:00.000-07:00

This entry has been a long time coming. July was a rather dull month as far as vineyard activity was concerned. There was this sort of prep work in anticipation of the September harvest, and an attempt to try to handle the problems that arose last year. There were days and days of taking the weedwacker to the persistant weed problem. There were actually moments when I was gaining on them, and planning to spray an herbicide on them just before I left to go north to keep them in check. And then the Bird Gard came in, and I spent some time mounting it above the rows of vines. It was a trip to listen to.......alternating recorded sounds of crows & grackles in distress with red tailed hawk sounds. Was it really working, or was it just entertainment ? Only time would tell.

I took a couple of BRIX readings during the two weeks, and they showed a decent climb in sugar levels that pointed towards an early harvest for two of our varieties. And then there were the early signs of rot that occur when it is just too humid to prevent such an encroachment.

Like many other times when I visited the vineyard and took great strides getting things done, in about the middle of the 2nd week things began to unfurl. These problems, generally mechanical in nature, seem to require a time span or special attention to resolve. There usually is neither to address these issues quickly.

The Bird Gard operated flawlessly using a motorcycle battery as a current source, but the plan was always to tie this in with a solar paneled charger so we wouldn't need to be swapping batteries. Here in was the problem.......you have no idea how lousy the delivery service is in rural America. Items coming in via UPS and Fed. Ex. Ground sometimes get passed off to the Postal Service once they realize that to make a truck delivery would cost them money. It is cheaper for them to just get the USPS involved, but that is worse than mailing a book 3rd Class. It takes forever, you lose all sense of timeliness, and forget about the tracking. Someday you'll get your package; don't plan on it any time soon.

As for getting the weeds sprayed, that was a lost cause too. I was just about ready to do the spraying when the ATV decided it would only go in reverse. The spray apparatus didn't adapt well to spraying backwards, and though in time I am sure I would have figured out what fell off, was disconnected or just plain stubburn, I decided to hand the ATV off to the local farm equipment guy to assure it would be fixed on my return.

This was a lonely time for me. I don't look at myself as a social animal. For the most part working alone works well for me. Fewer arguments I guess. But in time it does wear thin, and I think it is a combination of being physically beat and mentally fatigued. I felt like Tom Hanks who made a friendship with a volley ball. My Wilson was the Bird Gard, where I could just walk down to Block One and expect a noise from a make-believe bird.

This past month was an odd one to say the least. Diane came down this time, and the harvest season was about to get into full swing. We had gone on a spending spree and purchased a slew of winemaking equipment. There was the crusher / destemmer, the bladder press, the filter pump, and 4 stainless steel tanks. We set up a makeshift winery next to our house to get us throught this trial season. To see it unfold, even on this small scale, was exciting. It was now time to get serious.....prior to this it was just all talk. But the years of planting, weeding, spraying, pruning and all the other necessary things we did in the vineyard were now coming to a head.

Hurricane Irene was fastly approaching us. The weather service was spot on regarding its estimated landfall, and though we were 30 miles west of the forecasted center of the storm, that in itself meant we needed to consider the fierce winds that would be coming our way.

The Seyval Blancs and the Cabernet Francs both had high BRIX readings, and we knew that if we kept them on the vine that we would lose most of them in the storm. Grapes ready to be picked do not stay on the vine when 60 mile per hour plus winds hit them broadside.

So we went out to pick them, all by hand. This year was really a precursor to next year when we expect over 5 times as many grapes. We knew we had a light harvest to be expected this year, just by the way we pruned them, but still we were able to pull nearly 700 pounds of grapes from these 10 rows. It took almost all of two days to do it, and with those picked we put them right into the destemmer / crusher to start the winemaking process. What no one tells you while describing the romantic pursuit of grape harvesting is that you're not alone. Word gets out quickly to every wasp and bee in the area that fresh grapes, with their sugars, are available for the asking. Only an occassional hand gets in their way as they buzz, and land, and suck up some of these juices. And there are always some greedy yellow jackets that take exception to you wanting the grapes they have targeted for extraction. You would think that with a vineyard full of grapes they would just move on, but then you'd be giving them human characteristics with that assumption. So, if you are sensitive to bee bites, pick another way to spend your afternoon; my 6 stings are proof of that bit of wisdom !

All of this equipment was new to us, so just "throwing" grapes into a hopper required figuring out adjustments and operating methods. The crusher did a remarkable job, and when you figure it is capable of crushing 3 tons an hour we were able to crush as fast as we could pour in the grapes. Once crushed we moved the must to a holding tank for 24 hours as Diane added certain sulfides to halt any airborn yeasts from affecting the wine.

While we were doing all this the UPS guy made a delivery and asked if we felt the earhquake . What earthquake ? Though it was centered about 100 miles to our northwest, closer to D.C., we hadn't felt a thing. Maybe we were busy, or maybe the thickness of our crushpad prevented us from feeling any vibration. Who knows. It was not a problem we had to deal with.

The Cabernet Franc came next and these I mostly picked. I was a little faster with the snips than Diane was, and with these we didn't need to be as careful picking around those that had fungus issues as the Seyval Blancs had. It was a much quicker process, but we were playing against diminishing time as Irene was blowing up the east coast. By late day we had picked all the grapes and we went right ahead and put them through the destemmer/crusher. We were now pros at it, and as fast as we could dump our lugs into the hopper the machine crushed the grapes, sending the juice and skins in one direction and the stems in another. Following this it was off to the MagnaCube for overnight resting just like what we had done with the Seyval Blancs. However, this was the night we were to be hit hard by the hurricane so all we could do was cross our fingers and hope our mini-winery stayed in one piece as we tried to sleep.

I generally can sleep through most things as long as I know what the noise is in the background. Sudden bangs and creaks wake me instantly though and that night was full of them. I awakened the next morning at 5, and with Diane steadfastly asleep I felt the need to explore and check on the damage.

I got dressed and walked around the house, looking out the windows as I moved around. This is my normal trek as I wait for the coffee machine to perk my first cup, but usually I am looking for turkeys or deer feeding off my pecans and apples. And this is when I saw our worst loss of the storm. One of our biggest trees was a 100 year old pecan tree. It had been uprooted and pushed over by the winds that had taken advantage of the soft soils created by 12 inches of rain. The tree lay on its side, seemingly still alive but knowing it would be dieing a slow death as it eventually lost all of its internal moisture. It was very sad to know that we wouldn't be sharing its shade in the coming years, and that its partner, another huge pecan tree, would be standing alone where once two had stood. The next shock came shortly thereafter when I realized I would probably be spending a day cutting it up to clean up the mess. Oh well.

I threw on my shoes and started the walk down the road to see what else happened in my sleepless absence. The wind was still blowing some, and the grass was completely dry. Humidity levels had fallen quite rapidly behind the storm, and that was the pleasant result of the hurricane heading north at 16 mph. As I approached the vineyard all seemed OK until I started going up and down the rows. Two rows of Nortons had completely fallen over, having their steel posts snapped at the ground line like they were twigs. They weren't even bent; they were broken in two all the way down the row. The weight of the canopys was too great for the top wires to hold them up from each end; they lay as lifeless as the pecan tree had. The good news here though was that the grapes, though sideways, were still rooted and had just bent over. Still too heavy to move, or even put back on replacement posts, I decided to leave them down until the season ended and the leaves fell off. Without all the weight of the leaves, and with some minor pruning, I should at that time be able to reconstruct their positioning on the trellis.

I walked back to the house thinking how lucky we were to have only lost 2 rows of Nortons in this Class 3 hurricane. Others lost their lives; I just lost 100 pounds of grapes. Hardly comparable.

By now Diane had smelled the coffee brewing and was awake as I re-entered the house. It didn't take alot of convincing to have her get dressed so we could both do the walk again. She was as dismayed by the loss of the pecan as I was. I tried to keep the damage to the Nortons a secret as we walked down to their location, but we were welcomed by our resident turkeys as they had already found the fallen grapes and decided to take advantage of this easily accessable bounty. Once again my mind raced to my next task.....seeing if I could "pop" one for Thanksgiving dinner. No turkey will be as well fed or taste as good as one feeding on my own grapes.

Brush yourself off and start all over again

2011-06-26T17:14:00.000-07:00

It's been a week now since I have been at the vineyard. For the most part I have been in overdrive to get done what needs to get done. My Sunday is winding down and unlike the other night, I took my walk down the driveway in the day light this time. My driveway is a quarter mile long, so it is a good 7 to 10 minutes depending on my pace and stamina.

It is an inspection of what has been accomplished, and a realization there is still way more to do. I have just finished weed-wacking around all 2000 Cabernet Sauvignons....it took nearly three days to do them all. The difficulty was that I was making up for last year's neglect along with this year's growth. But now that it is done I can use herbicides to keep the weeds in check.

My walk is slow. The sky has those clouds that look like they were a paint by number picture. Shades of blue with a zig-zag of white throughout. There is a light wind....not as hot as earlier in the day but still warm nevertheless. I am drinking maybe my 12th bottle of water for the day. My hands are swollen from all the pruning and holding the wacker with its never-ending vibration. I can't even make a fist, but the good news is that I had one pair of pruning shears disintegrate in my hand, and the wacker's forward handle broke mid-way through the project. Bodily parts held together even though the man-made ones fell apart because they couldn't take the hard abuse.

When on a farm one must recognize that a couple hours a week must be planned for socializing. Yesterday my next door neighbor, an old time farmer, came over and said hi. We shared a couple local stories, he wished me well and let me get back to work. Today George appeared to pick up some cherry wood I had cut up and piled. George, along with his being a drummer in a local band, also loves to bar-be-que, and he wanted to try this type of fruit wood in his next ribs adventure. I was more than willing to contribute. Also this afternoon Alan from Summerwind Vineyard showed up. He has a nice vineyard located over in Smithfield and we on occasion share horror stories on the hard work constantly being challenged by the nutricious weed-growing rains and onslaught of black rot that comes from high humidity. It is nice to cry on each other's shoulders.....it is also nice to know someone who cares about his grapes as much as I do and has gone through many of the trials that I seem to be attracting.

I have so much paperwork to do but it just doesn't seem to get done. I have to layout the next expansion block, Block 3 for next year. I have already ordered 1700 Gamays (think Beaujolais) for next Spring and have to put together my requirements for Scuppernongs. The winery business plan must be put together, along with the permiting process that needs to get underway. And then working on the websites for the vineyard and winery to support all this effort from a sales / marketing perspective. But I am so tired at the end of the day I don't have the focus for these projects. Getting out in the field at maybe 5:30 a.m. to take advantage of the cooler mid-60's temperatures and working easily to 6 p.m. or so makes one not want to do anything more, even though dinner still must be planned. I try to think ahead here and make it easy and not boring. I have succeeded so far, avoiding attacking the cans in storage which provide basically filler, no flavor or imagination. Once I get past this, after having a glass of wine or a beer sort of puts me in a phase out mode. Paperwork no longer is a priority. It'll have to wait until I get home "to rest" I guess.

So wound up

2011-06-23T01:55:00.000-07:00

I've been at the vineyard for 3 days now.My method of operation is to come up with a list of projects to get done before I leave, and usually this list is way too long. About mid-way through, after I realize that there still is too much left to do, I decide which are the critical jobs, and which ones can wait till next time. It goes back to Business 101, set priorities, marking them A,B,or C and tackling the A's first (C's always seem to be more fun though).

I'm not yet at the point where I can classify these by their importance.....I still feel that I can cross most of them off the list. My days have started rather early....4 a.m. now as I write this blog. It is with 5 hours sleep, but I feel OK. The days have been really hot and to take a nap right after lunch is always a possibility. Last night I couldn't get to feeling tired, so I put on my mocs and walked down the driveway to unwind. The temperature was on the muggy side, and the light bouncing off the clouds onto the driveway was just enough for me to see where I was going without a flashlight. It was strange to see parallel white lines in the driveway's sandy ruts reflecting this nightime light. It wasn't like the skies were clear and the full moon was shinng. Overcast skies still allowed for this good visibility. Off on the side of the road is Block 2, and there I could see similar lighting patterns as the reflections off the tilled strips made for a zebra-like effect amongst the vineyard rows.

I have started my mowing, putting in 6 hours on the tractor. I did all of the vineyard and a couple of adjacent areas. I still need to do around the house and barn......maybe another 2 hours for that. Then I can switch the tractor back to the sprayer for a must-do fungicide & insecticide spraying. While pruning the Nortons (finally) I saw some really huge catepillars....big ugly green things that if I was into eating bugs, I'm sure one or two of these things would cover a slice of bread....with Miracle Whip of course.

The Nortons as I have discussed in the past have been the neglected child in the vineyard. An American grape that can take alot of abuse (please disregard the slaughter by the new tiller when I say this), they prosper without much attention. Finally getting to clean them up some requires a significant time per vine to just remove the suckers, any of which are the size of small trees. Looking down the completed rows shows serious signs of demolition, because as I cut the trimmings I drop them in the grass strip between the rows where I later mow them in.

Even after I prune each vine they still aren't quite right. There is a specific pattern for pruning the Nortons, which are hung on a Geneva Double Curtain trellis system. But after ignoring them since Aptil it is nearly impossibe to separate the new growth and locate them where they need to be....it is a lost cause. Will it effect the grapes, maybe, but I am not overly concerned. The grape bunches that exist now with the grapes the size of pearls are so plentiful that if they weren't so bitter they could feed all of Smithfield.

We had some rain earlier in the week, so while I was recovering from my long drive down I could apply myself to some inside work in a more relaxed manner. Just as there are winter projects and seasonal projects, there are also outside projects and foul weather projects. Organizing all the chemicals, trying to make room in the shed from all the tossed tools and half-completed repair projects, and jump-starting putting up another Purple Martin house were on the agenda. Like many of these chores, you can get just so far before you need a certain tool, or some hardware that just isn't in the inventory. Going into town for a 45 cent bolt to complete the task but spending $3 of gas to do it just doesn't make sense. So you just put it on the list, and do the "Little House on the Prairie" thing and go into town once a week to pick-up food supplies, parts, or whatever in order to make the best use of time and cost efficiency. No wonder some projects take weeks to complete !

Though it seems I am personally working on fumes putting out all the work on what appears to be very little sleep, I do sneak in a nap as I mentioned every now and then. In the evening with the t.v. on I'm not sure if I am only listening to the programing instead of watching it. Since I generally listen to news, or political speak, I don't need to follow visually a well-constructed plot line. And with all this being said, I am sure I tend to get cranky, but working alone prevents me from taking it out on any passer-by. Diane does get my abraisiveness when we talk on the phone, but with years of experience I am hoping that she puts the phone down while I rant and doesn't take any of it personally. Chris, who was running my operation took the major brunt of my lack of sleep last time I was here......he is sort of escaping that this time with better planning.

Spraying, running wire in Block 2, and working on getting rid of the weeds under the wires that the tiller didn't quite reach are the assignments forr the next week and a half. I think I will spend Sunday doing the odds jobs that are of personal interest, like putting up that Purple Martin house, and a flag pole too. The front fence needs painting, and there are fallen trees and branches that need to be cleaned up, left over from the last storm. At some point I have to go food shopping......I am still working off of the inventory I carried down with me which will start falling short in the next day or so.

So much to do, so much to do. Too bad I'm not a good whistler.

May was so yesterday

2011-06-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

I am in a perpetual state of going back and forth, back and forth. Two weeks there, two weeks away.If the month has more than 28 days in it, I have no clue where I'm going or heading.

It becomes a matter of making a list, checking it twice, and plowing forward trying to get all the things done that need to get done.....in 2 locations. The economy is in the tank, so my interest at the factory drops. The workload on the farm never seems to achieve "caught up" status, but when I am there there seems to be a forward motion, even though the results of my labor are month's away. This Fall will be our first harvest, and the efforts made now should be reflected in the grape production.

May was no different than many others, but with the traditional kick-off list of things to get started. I spent quite a bit of time pruning our varietals, this being the 3rd time this Spring they have been shaped. It is amazing how the suckers dominate in just a few short weeks. Once again the Nortons have taken a hit and were ignored, but in my June trip I hope to give them some needed attention. My Father visited at this time on his trip from Florida to the Adirondecks, and actually spent time with the Seyval Blancs cleaning up new growth. The vineyard has come a long ways from when he first visited on our initial planting three years or so ago.

He stayed for 5 days, working in the field off and on and visiting people in Williamsburg. And though the pruning was both relaxing and productive, the high (?) point of the week was when we were all anticipating the final episode of American Idol to see if our southern entry, Scotty, wins it all. On that Wednesday after an Italian dinner we were about to head into the living room for some relaxation and entertainment, but before we got up from the table a large BANG was heard. We had been directly hit by lightning from a passing storm. Well, the sound lasted only a microsecond but that was all it needed to blow out our power, and my Father's ear drums. But putting things in priority, we knew if we didn't act fast our chances of watching Scotty were dim.

My Father and I rushed out to the barn and grabbed the portable generator and hooked it up to the t.v. in his camper. All was saved.....Scotty won and we got to see it. Dominion Power came out within a couple of hours and replaced some fuses up on our power pole and we were back in business like nothing had happened, except for my Father's hearing which to this day hasn't fully recovered.

The rest of my time on the farm was devoted to pruning plus some spraying. Applying fungicides and insecticides now is a bi-weekly thing. It is the necessary element of trying to grow grapes in a humid region. Japanese beetles have habitually made themselves known on June 1st, so I was able to put this first spray down before their onslaught.

I also devoted a day to using my new tiller. In 8 hours I was able to till the 6 1/2 acres of vines, which easily would have taken 8 days had I done it using the walk-behind Troy tiller. The Italian machine is a monster, and though it has its quirks (it eats anything in its path), it was a real time saver and did a good job. It added another thing to my Winter list of to-dos, to try to adjust the sensor that "notices" vines by being more sensitive. Not something to re-engineer now.

June should be rather dull by comparison. More mowing, more spraying, more pruning. I am truly looking forward to it.

Footprints In The Sand

2011-05-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

On my last trip to the vineyard I was eager to try my new tiller, but timing didn't work out very well. The clock ticked towards the end of the week as I had to return up north to maintain some sense of reality, so when Friday rolled around I had to leave knowing the tiller was finally ready for trial. I just left the tractor & tiller at the farm equipment operation as I went home, trying to decide how soon I could return. But it is so often the case that as you move along in the calendar, there are new priorities to address, and the middle to end of April is no different.

This was a rare trip down when the pick-up wasn't full of something, and with that being the case I took a detour to a suburb north of Philly to pick-up 40,000 feet of trellis wire. I would need this later in the season as our new vines grow vertically to reach 36 inches from the ground. It is a long drive and the side trip makes it a little longer. Arrival at the vineyard is usually in the dark, and the headlights from the truck as we turn into the driveway don't shed enough light to see very much. Tall weeds and the required mowing appear to take center stage; grapevines in full bloom are hardly noticeable. To see the new season's hope will have to wait until the morning.

Morning started at 5:15 a.m. on Day #2. We have a driveway alarm that blasted at that time, and though I immediately recognized the sound, I jumped from the bed and raced full bore to the front window. Who could be going up my driveway at that hour ? I installed the unit because our driveway is a quarter mile long, and thought it would be nice to be made aware of any visitors, invited or not. The light was barely out then; I'm not sure it would qualify for daybreak or dawn it was so dark. I didn't see anything though, so the next logical step was to make the coffee and start the day.

It wasn't until 9 or so when I walked down the driveway to try to put the puzzle together on why the alarm went off. It is sensitive enough to screech when the wind moves the tall weeds across the driveway, but the wind was very calm that day. As I walked along I generally look for animal signs, specifically deer or turkeys, sometimes a mink or a fox. The deer and turkeys cause all kinds of grief in a vineyard. As for the carnivores, I wonder how my cat will deal with them when she eventually is relocated down south. The answer to the alarm became quite clear as I approached the sensor. Right in front of it were dozens of deer tracks, all nice and fresh in the sand over the top of the truck's tire tracks from the night before. They must have been out of sight by the time I raced up to the front of the house after hearing the alarm.

As I may have mentioned in past blogs, we had a horrible drought last year. The mortality rate amongst the new vines was fairly high. I had decided last yeaar that I would replace the approximately 12% of the Petit Verdots that bit the big one, and only replace a half of the over one thousand Cabernet Sauvignons that had died. Grafted grapevines are expensive enough; to plant them again is not only hard on the wallet but tough on the back.

So once again most of my time on the vineyard was spent on planting these replacements. Diane came down with me to help, and she said it right that when you spend the whole time planting it just doesn't seem like very much gets done. On a good day you may plant 200 or so, but that's not typical.
She managed to do a little secondary pruning.....removing suckers and doing bud counts on the cordons and canes. Other than spending 8 hours to mow all the grass around the farm, I guess that's all I did to be productive. Diane had to fly back on Tuesday, so that left the balance of the plants for me to put in the ground. It is a long and tedious job. It's not just redigging the hole and putting in the vine. It includes hand trucking all the pails of water needed to soak the ground and water after the earth is returned and packed down. And this water isn't right there either. It's not like you can run 600' of hose to your location. We put a 55 gallon barrel in the back of the truck and draw from it the pails of water we need, and then carry these to the spot where we are planting. Figure 2 pails for every 4 to 6 plants. Back and forth, and back and forth again. I finished the job with one day to spare.

During all this time I had maybe 4 hours to experiment with my new tiller. I had a choice at the end to either till or spray herbicide, and I chose spraying. I figured I could always till next time, rolling the dead weeds under.If I opted to till now, the weeds I couldn't get at would be waist high. That would have brought back nightmares from last year which I wanted to avoid at all costs. The new tiller for me was like driving a new oversized car. It had more power than I had envisioned, destroying everything in its path. And being way behind the tractor with this kind of energy required a sharp eye to watch it getting close to the vines. Do you know how hard it is to drive a tractor forward but looking backwards ? Well, forward isn't the problem. Forward and straight is. A minor adjustment in the rear could easily push your nose too far one way or the other, and then that complicated the whole process forcing you to zig-zag to try to straighten out. With practice I'm sure I'll figure it out, but it was a good thing I had an empty row to first maneuver around or I would have wiped out a slew of vines !

The week ended way too soon, but even though I can be pretty busy while I am alone, I miss my family and crave to return. There is always work to be done on the farm, and when the week ends I start putting together the list of required things to get done when I come back in 2 weeks. My list has over 30 things on it already, with tilling and getting the irrigation system back up and running being the top two.

On the last evening that I am at the farm I make it a habit to walk one last time down the driveway and around the two blocks we have planted. I look for things I missed, but usually it is to reflect on what was accomplished and what needs to be done. I begin to miss the farm and I haven't even left it yet. I have been on the farm without leaving it since I dropped Diane at the airport just three days earlier and tomorrow would be my day to rejoin civilization (if driving up US 95 at 70 mph with all the crazies is rejoining civilization). I slowly make my turn at the end of the driveway to return to the house, seeing how the grapes reflect in the setting Sun. The vines all look like they have their arms stretched out to welcome me; they either don't know I'm leaving or are glad I am, since all I seem to do to cut away at them during my pruning chores. It is for their own good, I tell them.

My pace up the driveway is not hurried; I realize when I get back to the house my only mission is to pack up and ready to leave the next morning, which is usually early. I am now past Block 1, reaching the middle of Block 2 where the alarm sensor is. I am looking for more deer prints because I hadn't seen any fresh ones since that first night. Even with Diane gone I never really feel alone knowing there are plenty of animals out there, and once again my feelings were justified. Right where I saw the original deer tracks there were some new ones......a coyote.

GOOD BONES

2011-03-29T04:41:00.000-07:00

It is rare that I get off on a piece of machinery. I view most of these accessories as serving a purpose, more utilitarian than being a showpiece. Sure, I "love" my blue New Holland tractor. And when I'm home up north I miss it as I drive around the yard cutting grass on a lil' Craftsman 10 horse. And when I'm tilling the garden in New England it takes me an hour or 2 using my Troy-bilt tiller, where it would take maybe 5 minutes with my New Holland with the tilling attachment.

But here is my new In & Out Tiller, still at the shop getting its hydraulics hooked up, shining bright yellow in the sun waiting to be put to good use. Looking at it all you see are the bones. There isn't a piece of wasted metal or iron on this machine. Bare skeleton doing the bare essentials. No glistening fenders or armor put on just for show. If it wasn't for the traditional slowness of hydraulic action, I'd swear the thing could fly with all the moving parts it has.

Vineyards tend to be planer. There are some that are on slopes, but as you drive a tractor between the rows, the tractor sits exactly 90 degrees from the land it is driving over. Knowing this comfortable fact, you realize that the accessories attached to the back will be in-line with the tractor, and move parallel to the ground surface too. I go into all this to help you understand that even though the new In & Out Tiller can twist this way and that, it is unlikely I will ever need some of the designed-in movements it is capable of doing. Set its height using the 3-point mechanism on the tractor, determine the starting point away from the wire, and go.

I purchased the tiller from Italy. When one thinks of wine, or at least the years of wine experience within the industry, you think of either France or Italy. Napa may be doing well in the wine business domestically, but they aren't known for their ground-breaking advances in hard core vineyard machinery (and no, NAPA auto parts didn't start in that part of California). It was shipped over via container during the winter and just saw the light of day a week ago as the local distributor unpacked it and sent it over to eastern Virginia. The better news was that even though the manual was written in Italian, it has great pictures !

The staking is almost done now, and it appears the timing will work out well as I finish that hammering job and start my tilling trials. Look for a video in the future.

6000 STAKES...MOSTLY WELL DONE

2011-03-27T13:39:00.000-07:00

As I get older, just as ambitious but restrained in knowing what I am capable of doing in a short period of time, I try to choose one major project to finish while I'm at the vineyard. In a previous post I believe I talked about my new "toy" for 2012....an In & Out Tiller I purchased from Italy. This accessory is attached to the back of the farm tractor and allows me to till in between each of the grapevines and under the wires. It has a sensor on it that sends a microswitch signal to the heart of the machine, that then hydraulically retracts the tilling mechanism when it approaches a vine or a post.

In one....no many.....of my earlier posts I have complained how weeds seem to dominate my nightmares about the vineyard. Controlling weeds really is a big thing. Hopefully this new machine will calm my worries. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. The new tiller just arrived but is a few days away from being hooked up and ready for trial. What I have to do now is pound in 6000 stakes. You see, the tiller doesn't know a small vine from a weed. The grapevines planted last year are not sturdy enough to fend off a sensor, and the tiller would make mincemeat out of them if there wasn't a method to protect them. Hence the stakes.

I purchased 6000 oak stakes and picked them up in West Virginia on this trip down to the vineyard. 6000 stakes weigh somewhere around 1800 pounds and completely fill up the back of my pickup. Figure 2 full skids worth, each skid being 48" x 42" x 30" high. Talk about control issues on the drive down ! I felt like I was hydroplaning on the interstates, nose in the air and waving left to right as I pointed the truck south. Driving a little slower helped tremendously, and again I have to admit that it is with conditions like this when I finally obey the speed limits. 60 mph seems so slow !

Four hours after I left WVA I was pulling into the farm, tired as can be but prepared to now pound in the stakes when I woke up the next morning. Relatively speaking, the ground was soft, though it still took 7 or 8 hits with a sledge to put the stake in only 6". Each vine gets 2, one on each side of the vertical vine rootstock. When I finally get to till I will drive up one side of a row and drive back on the other. This makes for a nice 24" cleared area directly under the wires.

Until I get the tractor ready, there is very little more I can say about it. I am quite eager to see it in action, but in the meantime I have to pound stakes. As of now I've completed all the Cabernet Sauvignons. I have the Petit Verdots still to do....maybe 3 more days of pounding. Let's see.....that's 1000 vines, 2000 stakes, times 8 wacks each for a total of 16000 wacks of lifting a 2 1/2 pound sledge, which makes for a repetitive bench press(with one arm) of 40,000 pounds or 20 tons. Hope my arm has it in it !

My other new gadget, alot less expensive fortunately, is a time lapse camera. I've mounted it in Block 1 aimed at one of the more developed Seyval Blancs and with this I am trying to get a nice set of pictures showing bud break and shoot growth. I was worried that I might miss a good starting point but with all the cold we have been getting lately it looks like we will be getting a delayed bud break. I originally forecasted April 1st.....it looks more like mid-April this year. It should coincide with some replacement vines I have coming in right about then that will fill some of the gaps resulting from last year's drought and subsequent losses.

Diane is flying down this next week. Richmond is holding a big expo called Wineries Unlimited which she, as the winemaker, and I are attending. It is time to get serious now. We are most likely going to get our first crop this Fall and we now need to gear up with all the winemaking equipment. Not really a social event, it is wall to wall stainless tanks,pumps,filters,destemmers & crushers, bottling machines and on and on. Tie this in with getting a winery built next year and it looks like, once again, we will have our plate filled....or at least our glasses.

A NEW SEASON

2011-03-02T16:45:00.000-08:00

There is only minor debate as to when the new season begins. Some vintners believe it is when the last grapes make it to crush during the harvest season. Others think it falls somewhere between the time dormant pruning occurs and bud break. Time wise there is a big time difference here. Harvest is in September or October, while bud break has been as close to April 1st as the last frost permits. This is almost 6 months of variance. For me it is somewhere in the middle, maybe more like the calendar with January being the start. When the harvest concludes there still is some warm weather to work within, and here is when you not only shut the operation down, but there are the many small projects that took the back seat relative to other priorities when the grapes were the king. These projects relate to "last year's" season, though obviously they need to be done prior to next season. In January however there are all the things that need to get done before the grapevines require absolute attention. And to know that the new season has started is to know that there is a daily juggling of time prior to the anticipated April 1st "blast off" doing the needed jobs within the weather pattern of warm days and still brutally cold days. Last week was my kick-off for the 2011 year. The string of warm days in a row justified a trip to the vineyard. The number one priority was to do the first round of rough pruning on the Block 1 grapes. Generally grapevines require 2 dormant prunings, doing the first pass right helps tremendously on the effort required for the second. During the first pass the idea is to get the vine to have the basic shape you want. This means getting rid of everything that doesn't contribute to the training method you have chosen. It involves choosing the main canes, trimming off the suckers, possibly shortening some growth that turned out to be overly aggressive in the previous season. If the vines were neglected this could mean alot of work, as much as 8 to 10 minutes devoted to pruning a single vine, which was the case for many of our Nortons. Diane and I walked away feeling fairly successful in our pruning efforts. Nearly all of the grapevines were pruned, leaving only a couple of rows of Seyval Blanc that had been late season pruned to go over again for new growth. And as if we didn't have enough to do, we gathered a bunch of prunings in order to make grapevine wreaths when Diane gets in the mood. The second pruning occurs just prior to bud break, which as mentioned has come on or around April 1st. This is where you decide how many buds you want to leave , with their appropriate spacing, depending on how vigorous the plant had been the previous season. This technically should include weighing off the clippings from the 1st pruning and putting this weight through a calculation specifically assigned to the type of grape you have. Some types can handle a greater fruit load than others. I'll go over the particulars in my next entry. I've mentioned in previous blogs how Diane makes an effort to pull me from the fields to do a little socializing while in the area. She found the perfect excuse this time around by getting us to go to the Virginia Vineyard Association's Wine Expo held in Richmond this past weekend. Held at the convention center, it showcased many of Virginia's 190 wineries by providing tastings of the many wines grown and produced in the Commonwealth. Having tasted plenty of wine, I can honestly say they would hold up well when compared to Napa or Sonoma. Also at the convention the Governor's Cup was awarded to Virginia's top red wine for 2011. It was a Meritage blend from a small microwinery.....quite good I might add.

The end of the year, but not the end of...

2010-11-10T11:14:00.000-08:00

I must confess, I miss it already. Even though the season is officially over, I miss the bull work, the repetition, the looking forward to the "possible" harvest which the migrating birds enjoyed this year. There was the official bud break which occurs about April 1st, and then the rapid growth of shoots which inevitably leads to a huge amount of pruning that needs to be done. This year I taught my brother and his wife the solitary nature of pruning.....visualizing the end intent, choosing the shoots to get you there, and trimming off those that have been determined their place is better on the ground than with the vine.

This year was tough, but I look forward to a completed irrigation system next year to help spur new growth. Even though I only plan to replace half of the vines that didn't make it through the serious drought we had, I wish I could replace all of them and then expand even more. The next expansion isn't planned until Spring of 2012 with 3 new varieties. It can't come soon enough, and once again I'll set up the "perfect plan" to make it all run smoothly....though it hasn't yet.

Last week I was walking the vineyard and I could see the absolutely straight rows of poles I put in with the help of my son Chris. It was his first introduction to farming and driving a tractor....well, at this type of farming anyway. I'm sure that at the end of the day he was mentally trying to figure out if there was a better way. Maybe there is....someday we'll find it....but it was a project successfully completed and that he can be happy about.

The Fall is a time to shut the place down and start looking at all the little projects that were put on the back burner during the hectic growing season. I drained the irrigation system, and my other son Rich was with me and was assigned to finish the trellis system (Geneva Double Current) for the Nortons. We know we'll need the full trellis next year....Nortons grow like crazy.

December will be dedicated to more little projects. But there is one BIG one I'll begin. When we started this vineyard Diane and I talked about the winery, but at the time it was years off. The clock has ticked, the vines have grown, and we are now at the time when we must pay attention to the winery. We have sat with a local architect we like in a preliminary discussion and now we have to get serious. In December I will have another meeting with the architect and we will get the project rolling. We plan on putting the shovel in the ground in Spring of 2012, so that gives us just over a year to do all the advance work. There is so much to do, and I suspect that even with all this prethought we will still run out of time towards the end. First crush is planned for Fall of 2012 and we have to have a place to do it all in. Build a winery, put in the fermenting tanks with the destemmer, crusher, pumps, filter system, etc. etc. Then have a tasting room, a minny bakery on the side, along with a gift shop.

It can seem overwhelming at times.

It is a very exciting time.

No need to reflect...season's over

2010-10-02T16:51:00.000-07:00

Sounds kind of depressing, doesn't it ? In the past I've used the end of the year to reflect, but looking at the last few blog entries it appears that I have been making comments in this regard throughout most of the season as events have unfolded and completely altered my "big plans" for 2010.

Things just didn't go as smooth as I had wanted. They started off on the wrong footing with a delay in the new field opening due to a late soy harvest in 2009. And then my key guy had decided for him that 3 squares a day and a roof over his head, complements of the Virginia Commonwealth, was going to dominate his year. It was one of the driest and hottest years on record, and with new plants and a non-existent irrigation system, it proved that crop losses in the vineyard matched those in other crops.....we lost 50% of our new vines, mostly Cabernet Sauvignon. Diane, ever the optimist when it comes to things of a growing nature, thinks that some will show signs of life if we just continue to water them through October. I'm not too sure.

General pruning and weed control took a back seat to getting the new block up and growing and watered, which pretty much worked its way well into September before this task could be considered done. Way too long for an expansion.

I'm looking ahead to next year, and the year after which as they say will be here sooner than you think. As for the grapevines in Block 1 and Block 2, there is always the pruning that is requiring. This can be done anytime once they become dormant up until they start to have bud break. A mild winter will allow this to be done piecemeal during the next 4 or so months. And then there are the replacement vines to be put in Block 2....almost 1000 of them. Gulp ! But time wise this won't take very long since they are already marked with the irrigation system working to give them a good start.

As for weeding and fertilizing, we have all the sprayers now converted to handle vines already up to the top wire, as well as having directional nozzles to aim at the one year old plants still close to the ground. This past year we added a new piece of equipment that will spray herbicides in the most efficient and directed manner available. We tried it this past year and it was a great success, though we weren't as diligent as we should have been in maintaining a spray schedule.

Our big purchase in 2011 will be an in-and-out tiller. It is just another cool piece of equipment that attachs to a 3-point capable tractor and tills weeds under the wires, toggling out and in around the grapes for absolute ground coverage. It is hypnotising to watch this thing work. When we get the website up we'll have a youtube of it in action. I calculated that it would take nearly 2 weeks to till the two blocks using a conventional tiller so it didn't take much in the way of justification to decide to get one of these fast running Italian machines for next year.

And now I am putting together the plans for the winery. First crush will be Fall of 2012 and we need a winery to do all this in. That means the chrome-plated shovel must be ready to break earth in that same Spring.....just 16 months away. Diane and I have talked about styles and layouts, and right now we are looking at a nice post and beam barn layout. It would fit well with the local architecture and allow us the flexibility to alter the inside to meet our needs. Initially the winery, tasting room, and retail outlet need to be considered, but ultimately a small bakery, coffee shop, and restaurant are to be added shortly afterwards. There is alot to consider and soon we will need the help of an architect to fine tune it, but at least "we think" we know what we want.

Of course, all of this must in some way coincide with my selling my business and home in Massachusetts, both tough nuts to crack in a downer economy, but things always seem to work out with perseverence and focus.

One final note. The birds got to the Norton grapes in a very timely manner. They know the BRIX reading as well as any refractometer does. When I returned to pick them, all I saw was grape bunch skeletons. It kinda capped the year I guess, but on the bright side this was not a major harvest year, and it forewarned us of a problem that needs to be addressed before next Fall.

The Dog Days of Summer

2010-08-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

What'll you do when that great plan made earlier in the year goes absolutely to pot ? Remember Jerry.......well he came back temporarily only to be "relocated" to a State facility for about 6 months. Apparently the vineyard didn't keep him busy enough to stay out of trouble.
So that completely erased my visiting the vineyard once a month to my being an A+ member of AirTrans, going back and forth to Virginia 3 times in August alone.

Oh, and lets toss insult to injury here and have August to be one of the hottest months on record with almost no rain.

Remember the ongoing project of putting the irrigation system in ? It took 3 trips down to finally get the system working for the Petit Verdot....finally. And it looks like I may have found someone to help complete the layout for the Cabernet Sauvignons during my latest absence, but even so he may only be able to get 2/3 of it done by the time I return 7 days from now. But it is progress. Maybe we'll have the system fully in by Labor Day !

The question then comes down to how many of these vines were hardy enough to survive without alot of water. I guess we''ll see if we get any new growth in the next month or so having been finally properly taken care of.

Working in Virginia, in the fields, in the summer, is an experience in itself. When you get up early in the morning, maybe around 6:30 or 7, you are as refreshed as you're going to be with hopefully a full nights rest (trust me, that's rare for me regardless). It is in the upper 60's or low 70's outside, but the official dew point is barely a few degrees below this. The grass and the weeds are soaked, and any idea of not having your feet completely water-logged within the first 15 minutes of working in the field is utter nonsense. The heat rapidly rises, and for the first half of August this means upper 80's or mid-90's by noon. The dew point does stay put, but the humidity climbs nearly as fast. Five hours into the day you are drenched.....not just the shirt but also the pants, socks, and shoes. And oh, if you keep track of this sort of thing, they have what's known as the Heat Index which basically describes how miserable you are in numerical terms. How about 126 for a number ?....doesn't it just sound bad ?

But this is what is presented to you, and if you want to be productive at all you tackle this head on, putting on the suntan lotion, drinking plenty of fluids, and push on until around noon when sanity takes over and you have to retreat into an air conditioned house. Hey, but this is only 5 hours ! Back into the fields at around 5:30 or 6 to put in another couple of hours after the sun has dropped nearer to the horizon and teases you with what you believe to be cooler conditions.

Update on the BRIX levels....
During August I had checked both the Seyval Blanc and the Nortons. The Seyvals were rapidly moving up, first to a 20 reading and then finally to a 25 reading....already time to harvest !! I conferred with my winemaker and was told that the next time I was down here in Virginia I would have to pick them. So here I was, on the 2nd trip to Virginia in the month, only to find that the birds (we suspect turkeys) were monitoring the BRIX levels also. All the Seyvals were eaten !@!@#@! Our next hope is the Nortons (picture above). As of August 16th they measured 20 on the BRIX scale so we think they will be ready by Labor Day or shortly thereafter. Not sure if the birds like red grapes quite as much as they like the white ones, but maybe we can beat them to the harvest this time and give us enough of a test quantity to make some nice table reds or some blush wine.

COMING AROUND AGAIN...

2010-07-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

It is now early July and I am back on the vineyard.......or let's just say I have just left and am reviewing the work that has been done.

As I mentioned in my last blog we had several things to accomplish in order to make serious progress during this trip. I was able to rent a Ditch Witch and dig the trench to tie the water lines in Block 2 to the main system. Digging down into hard pack was really tough...not only were the cutters having a hard time ripping out the earth that was as hard as granite due to the drought, but as it was trying the wheels spun in the soft top sand and dug themselves in. Try moving a Ditch Witch that has dug itself into the ground....no easy task.

It took a day to dig the trenches needed, and the following day I had to go in with a trench shovel and clean out spots that I couldn't go deep enough with using the machine. In one spot I had to avoid slicing the telephone wire, which surprizingly was exactly where DigSafe (or Virginia's equivalent) said it was.....24" down. Of course I ended up slicing through another wire that wasn't identified, but it must not have been juiced or I would have lit up.

The day after I tied in all the irrigation lines that were preassembled (Diane flew down to help here, along with some pruning....more on that later) and called it a day. I didn't have the energy to test them that late in the day. In case there was a problem there wasn't enough time left to fix it anyway.

Changing subjects.....guess who showed up ? Jerry, of course. After his months (and months) of disappearance, he said he wanted to continue now that he had nearly fully recovered from his stint with depression, migranes,, etc. Well, Jerry owed me hours ( I had paid him in advance some during late winter when the weather wasn't great but he needed rent money) so who was I to say no, at least for now. So I used Jerry to test the system out and once we took care of only one gusher where a coupling failed, it was working fine and was ready to be backfilled. At that point I was mentally and physically fried (it was at the end on my 2 week stretch) so I just delegated it to him to do. While I was there he also started doing the tie-in work for the Petit Verdots.....drilling the bottom wire holes, running the wire, putting up the drip lines and installing the drippers. Hopefully this all will be done by the time I return. Really I hope earlier than my return so we can turn on the water to Block 2 .....it has been very very dry and the grapes need the water for basic survival. Some of the grapevines look rather sad...dead leaves that seemed so promising when planted are completely browned or have dropped off. Oh, the life of a farmer ! Cross our fingers and pray that the roots and trunk are still in good shape. We will know in the next few weeks our survival rate....once we get some water on them and see how they respond. There just isn't alot of rain in the forecast.

The other projects included some pruning, and some spraying. As mentioned , Diane came down for a few days and she was able to pry me away from the vineyard for a night on the town. We went over to Colonial Downs for some horse racing and fireworks on July 4th. They have a nice setup......the best that loser's money can provide. We bet on 9 out of 10 races....we lost on 9 out of 10 races. Now they weren't able to expand their facilities with the money we lost at only $2 a race, but come on, how can you lose a race betting Show on the most favored horse ? Ah, the gamblers nightmare; once again reinforcing why I don't do the Lotto, the track, or go to Vegas. But the fireworks at the track were first class and we had a great time. Of course there was a dark moment. After the show we raced to the ferry landing, got there in time only to find out that the ferry was full and we had to wait an hour (until 1:30 a.m.) for the next ferry to arrive and take us across the James. Bummer.

Diane helped with the pruning. I put her on the Cabernet Francs while I tackled the Nortons. All had become bushes by now and the 3 minutes it took for pruning vines to establish cordons last month now took double or triple the time this month. After a couple of days Diane had done 1 1/2 rows. I was on the Nortons and they bordered on a nightmare. These are being trained with a twin trunk, therefore double the amount of hedge to prune back, not to mention their ordinary vigorous behavior. I got through maybe a little over half of them before my 2 weeks were up and I had to return north. I can't imagine what they will look like when I return again. And those poor Viogniers.......they have yet to see pruning sheers since the initial cutting.

Lastly I did some spraying. I had reconstructed the boom system on the sprayer the last time I was there. It is now capable of spraying sideways at 2 levels in both directions as I ride down a row. It worked quite well actually. Testing out a speed / spray usage earlier in the week I was able to spray exactly 25 gallons of diluted spray of fungicide and insecticide in an hour doing Block 1. Previously this was a 5 to 6 hour job. When you have to rely totally on one person ( a.k.a. moi) you get pretty smart as how to get the work done faster and more efficiently. Now how can I be more efficient at pruning ?

That was my stint at the vineyard in the 1st half of July. I have been home now a couple of days and have gone through my period of decompression. I have already reserved plane tickets for a return trip in August. A one week stay devoted to finalizing the irrigation for Block 2, and more pruning, and seeing if Jerry finished the assigned tasks.

On a more intersting note, Diane tested the grapes we have hanging on the Seyval Blancs and they register a 5% sugar level. They have a long ways to go but we have many more sunny months to bring them up to the 25% Brix level we need at picking. Looks like a late September or October harvesting is on schedule. Maybe we'll have all the other grapes pruned by then !

SO MUCH TO DO, SO MUCH TO DO

2010-06-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

It's mid-June now, and I have just finished my 1 1/2 week stint on the vineyard. I remember last year going to work in Virginia a week at a time, usually once a month. This year the workload has grown (no takers on my job opening yet) and I visit with an open-ended schedule in the vineyard. I love working the fields, but I hate wasting 12 hours of driving each way to go to and from. That is another problem to address, but it doesn't help on the workload.

This latest trip was a success in as much as alot of "must do" projects were completed. I was visited by my brother Ron and his wife Barb who realized at the onset that that I would put them to work, especially on 2-man projects where I needed the extra hands. They had come up to Virginia to visit relatives in Maryland, but ended up putting some time in with me as part of a "working vacation".

I taught Ron the finer points of driving a farm tractor with its 3-point hook-up as we pounded in the last of the wooden posts in the Block 2 expansion. From there we used the gas auger to drill holes for planting the balance of the Cabernet Sauvignons that had been stored in a refrigerator from last month. In case anyone asks, a refrigerator can hold 625 grafted vines max.

During the week it was rather hot, so outside work was restricted to early morning and late evening, when the sun wasn't as glaring and a slight breeze made working the vines tolerable. I taught Ron and Barb how to prune 3 year old vines, establishing the cordons for next year's cane growth. We would go back in the field around 6 p.m. and work until 8 or so when light was too dim to make good cutting decisions, and when we were just exhausted enough to call it a day. There would ALWAYS be another day....there would always be more vines to prune too.

We concentrated on the Seyval Blancs while they were there. I have 10 rows of them, somewhere around 500 vines. They had grown so much since their first pruning that it took nearly 3 minutes a piece to cut off the unwanted shoots, not to mention all the fruit clusters that the vines had already allowed. Normally we would remove all these clusters but there were so many, and the vines were growing so well, that we left a couple on average on each vine for a Fall harvest, allowing us to get warmed up on wine production 2 years ahead of schedule.

Ron and Barb eventually had to leave, and after they departed I planted the 625 Cabs and worked on the spray systems for the next visit. The Japanese Beetles are out in full force now, and they love grape leaves. I also have to consider all the fungus issues that come with hot humid temperatures. Prudent spray use is necessary just to keep even.....I don't really know how the "organic" guys do it.

My next visit can't come soon enough. My mind is already back in Virginia and I know I still have the Viognier, Cab Francs, and Nortons to prune a 2nd time. I also have to tie in the irrigation system into Block 2. We have been rather lucky lately so the need to connect all the drip lines hasn't made it a priority (at least not with everything else that needed to be done).
It had been so dry in the Spring that my back fields still haven't been planted. We had soy last year, and it is getting a little late for corn. Maybe we'll get a grain in ?

KEEP FOCUSED ON THE PRIZE

2010-05-17T05:36:00.000-07:00

Alot has happened since my last entry. Part of it is that I have been relentless and focused on getting the work done that needed to be, and a good part of it is that I have had the help of others when I pleaded to the world for help.
To begin, Jerry disappeared from the map. His landlord even showed up looking for him because he skipped out of paying his rent. He has become a ghost who someday will reappear....they always do. And then I looked at several people to fill his spot, only to find out that the better, reliable workers were all taken elsewhere, and those that feigned an interest were no shows or not committed to the cause. Maybe the recession is over (or maybe farm work is REALLY hard and no one wants to do it). So what I did was get hold of Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia and presented internship openings to see if I could get any students that wanted to learn the vineyard trade. They are having their exams now.....possibly some interest there when they're over ?
But in the meantime I had to get to work. The vines were due to be shipped in at the end of April and lots had to be done before then.
My older son was shamed into helping for a week, so we drove down together in a 17 hour drive, stopping at vendors to pick up wire and machinery, along with stopping at a plastics vendor to chew him out for poor delivery. It was a long drive but Chris made it through without a complaint. Our mission together was to lay out the fields (Block 2) in a grid pattern and start pounding in posts. We did nearly all the field while he was in town. I think Chris had a new found respect for the work that goes in to just this step alone. Poles just don't "appear" in the fields. Each one needs to be placed, jockeyed into position, pounded, readjusted, and pounded again. Over and over and over. The 2 of us completed all the poles for the Petit Verdots, and got well into those needed for the Cabernet Sauvignons.
During this time Diane came down for a few days. Flew in and flew out. It gave Chris and I the chance to just work till we dropped.....Diane took care of feeding us along with doing some vineyard work in Block 1.....planting new vines where vines had died over the winter (or before) . She could only stay a few days, and found her escape on a Monday. Chris was quick to jump on that bandwagon too seeing it as his only available exit strategy. I don't blame him really. When I get down on the vineyard there is so much work that I rarely come up for air. Any food in the frige or the cabinets is used to allow me to survive and continue working. I just can't find the energy or time to go into town to buy food for well-rounded meals. With Chris he felt captive to this mentality and with his major contribution behind him returning to Massachusetts was looked forward to as a place for recovery.
And with a few more posts to pound in, I hired a guy who talked the talk but didn't walk the walk. He did however drive the tractor for 3 days so I could pound in the balance of the posts we had (we were still short around 20 posts which we'll get in at a later date). I offered him plenty of work after I left, recognizing this wasn't a career move for him. Being yessed to death but no-showing seems to be a trend down there. I was once again totally empty handed.
So a few weeks went by and I did a return trip to New England to earn a living, to only have my mind back in Virginia knowing vines would soon be on their way. Over 2700 vines arrived at the vineyard during that last week in April. I tried to contact the UPS driver to have them placed in the shade......communication was difficult at best. Fortunately my next door neighbor was able to move them well under the car canopy to keep them from being dried out in the sun.
On this trip Diane drove down with me along with her brother John. I think he was purely curious about the whole process. Diane and I have been talking about it for years. Her sister Annie came down once to help put in a fence so there were stories that needed to be tied together and a visit by him would allow this. And of course his help was surely needed.
Once again I was driven to get as much work done as I could, especially with 2 other people volunteering their blood and sweat (well, Diane is not really a volunteer). Diane focused on planting the Petit Verdots, while Johnny and I drilled holes with a gas powered auger ahead of her to speed up the planting. After 3 days John had fulfilled his duty.....the Petit Verdots were fully drilled and fully planted and he found a flight home. Once again we had dove into the project head first. No time to show John the sights, something he wished we had time for. Diane promised that if he came back "off-season" we would have time for more touristy stuff.
So that left Diane and me to get as much done in the upper field for the Cab. Sauvignons.
We did leave the vineyard for a short while though.....a kind of a breather. We visited Smithfield and went to a farmers market......nothing great there to buy, and the a local Inn was selling alot of their furnishings that didn't go along with their remodeling plans.....nothing there we needed either. Diane also zipped into town to pick up some food for me too, since she knew once she flew home (an unplanned flight, but I had to stay to finish the planting) I wouldn't leave the land.
Our efforts were spent on drilling holes. The Cab. Sauvignons required 1750 holes, and with that they need to be measured out between the posts before they were drilled. It is a 2 person job to efficiently do this. Constantly lining up the holes, measuring off of each post, and then drilling.
Now don't think that drilling is easy. Picking up an auger, placing it in position, repositioning it as required and then finally drilling is like doing 4 bench presses per hole. And then don't think we're drilling through soft crumbly loam.....THINK CONCRETE !! It has been dry for so long that the clay-filled soil was impenetrable. Even with both of our weights leaning on the 2 handles of the auger, there were times when the auger bit only was able to dig down an inch or two and kick up fine silt. It was tough going But after 4 more days we were able to drill 1140 holes.
Now this number wasn't the "magic number" we wanted, which was 1750 holes. But understand Diane's brain was clicking to solve this problem....i.e. not having the time to drill and plant all the vines. Her idea was to completely empty a spare refrigerator we had of its shelves and use it to store the vines we couldn't plant, which is what we did. We placed (more like jammed) 625 vines in the refrigerator (make a note that this is maximum capacity !) and turned on the machine to 37 degrees. This would keep them dormant until we were ready to plant them.
It was now time for Diane to fly away. She had an early (early equals 5:30 a.m.) flight out of Newport News on the following Monday, and that left me with the duty of planting all the Cabernet Sauvignon vines not put in cold storage. It took 4 days to do it....that's alot of deep knee bends (thank god it wasn't more bench presses), but it was finally done in time for me to drive back on Friday.
I had been down there 2 full weeks. With the help of John and Diane (and of course Chris previously), we got alot accomplished. There is a ton of work left, not to mention that grapes are actually growing on all our vines in Block 1 that have to be pruned off.
Block 1 needs to be pruned. A spray schedule has to be initiated. The irrigation system has to be extended into Block 2 (and that requires drilling wire holes, running wire and drip lines, putting in the drippers), completing the planting of the chilly Cabs., weeding (and weeding and weeding). It has now become a full time job.
I am due back in 2 weeks. Can't wait. Really.

Calming Effect....Well not really

2010-03-21T17:52:00.000-07:00

Just yesterday I was spewing about how I was let down, my key guy decided to disappear, and restating the age old truism that "grapes wait for no man", I went out in the field today to complete the pruning required in Block 1.
It took about 3 days to till the 3 acres, and another 3 days to prune them.
For anyone who has been thrown into a rather mundane chore, where mechanical motions are learned fast and tend to take over one's motions, you can remember how your mind can wander (or not) depending on the circumstances that have presented themselves.
I for one do not wear an ipod with a set of earphones when I get put into these situations. I would rather not. The constant noise tends to be more of an irritant after awhile. The constant drone of pounding music, or miscellaneous chatter if you tune in to talk radio, are irritating to me. I have seen people with their Sony Walkman's (oh that is so 90's !) who seem to be inattentive to the task at hand and are using it merely to allow time to go by. That's great if you're on the clock and don't really care what you're doing, but if the task at hand should be done right then this minor diversion seems to be counter-productive.....giving the impression that time is passing by efficiently when the opposite is more the case.
In any event, I opt to go it alone. Me, my shears, and the grapevines all doing one thing. But the mind must think of something. Other than the exact moment when you stare at a vine, I am thinking of something else, and that tends to be the top 4 subjects of the day.
Before I touch upon those, the act of pruning is one that can impress a neophyte watching a "pruning veteran" go at a vine quickly with determination and swift cutting. Each year the vine should be trained to take the next step, and it is in the mind of the pruner to imagine this big picture before the shears start cutting. It is amazing how fast one can lop off shoots or canes when you stare at the vine and basically say that that doesn't belong, and will contribute nothing to the big plan. There tends to be a routine as you move from one vine to the next, and an occasional blip may occur when you approach a vine that didn't quite perform like its neighbors. But after 20 or 30 vines you've seen it all and the decisions tend to be easier, and more mechanical. Those shears will automatically move to a shoot that needs trimming, and hopefully few cuts are made with regret. But don't worry, grapes tend to rebound if you screw up, which does happen.
Now after nearly 16 hours of pruning over the last couple of days my mind is settling on the top 4 problems of the day. One never dreams of weekends in the mountains, a weeklong cruise in the Caribbean, and presents under the Christmas tree. You always think about problems. Some can be personal, others down right world-sized. I'm not sure it really matters; there is so much mental time available to cover them all, over and over.
Today I thought about Jerry, and what I am going to do to get the job done, especially getting the poles in. It is a 2 man job, like it or not. And, when am I going to fit it in ? I came up with only vague answers. And regarding Jerry, what actions do I need to take to cover my flanks and not get burned too much. Will he show up Tuesday or Wednesday and want to get paid for the one day he worked, or does he think I'm going to front him money as I have done in the past to cover his rent even when the weather was bad, anticipating that there will be plenty of time later on to make it up ?
And then I have this Facebook "friend" who has worked at the Social Security Adminstration his entire adult life, and thinks entitlements, especially the new health care bill, are OK and the finances regarding it be damned. He believes all of the GOP as assholes, and anyone who watches FOX News are one step above a lizard. Well I'm not trying to change his mind....I don't dare start a Facebook debate, but all I can think of is that if he represents the party of tolerance, what is he really tolerant about if it doesn't include the attitudes and opinions of the opposite party ?
How can I continue to be productive ? I've been flat out for 6 straight days. I want to do something to help the cause, but I'm tired of doing field work. Are there other projects I can do to show progress without feeling I am pushing myself too much? Is there such a thing as a productive assignment that will allow me to coast and chill out ? I did find one today (or so I thought) when I decided to move some machinery around in the barn,and do a little clean-up in there. Unfortunately I found that Jerry had absolutely destroyed a PTO attachment for the tiller and never told me about it, along with butchering several other pieces of equipment that now need to have parts that are mysteriously missing replaced before they can be used.
And then there are minor issues.....gettng the farm refinanced with the new lower finance rates that are available, figuring out how I am going to squeeze in getting my driver's license switched to Virginia, finding time to race across the river to Lowes to pick up a few items for the irrigation system (local hardware stores don't have the parts I need), when will be the best time to drive home, will I get any hits on the want ad I am putting in the paper, etc. etc.
It is hardly a relaxing time pruning the grapevines.
Maybe my next blog entry will be about those putting in those pesky poles.....maybe.

BACK TO SQUARE 1 (or is it Block 1?)

2010-03-20T01:28:00.000-07:00

It took what seemed almost forever for the weather to cooperate so that we could start the needed prep work for the Block 2 expansion. This part of Virginia had the worst weather it has seen in years, and even though we didn't get walloped with the deep snows that D.C. saw, we did get just enough inches of the white stuff to freeze the ground.
Pounding poles into frozen ground is about the same as trying to pound a nail in a concrete surface. There would be nothing left of the equipment or the operator after just a few posts,
So we waited, and we waited, and now in mid-March it is time to get going. But the problem is that we waited so long that Block 1 now needs immediate attention......bud break occurred last year on April 1st and there is no reason to believe it won't be about the same time. We are watching bud swell and it appears we have a little time but not much.
For those that have gone through my previous blogs you may remember that one of my major themes (when times are tough, days are long, and mother nature is testing my determination) is the weeds, and what am I to do about them.
During the winter we came up with a strategy that includes tilling, spraying a pre-emergent herbicide down, and then following-up with some post-emergent herbicides as time goes on.
Bud break announces that Spring is here, and with that is the eruption of every little dormant weed seed that is in the field. There is no time to lose, and last year's debacle of getting to it one or two weeks too late amounted to seasonal anguish (and near suicide !).
Soooo, priorities have changed and we now have a full-court push to prep Block 1. Jerry and I (well, really just "I", more on that later), started the tilling and after 2 1/2 days we have completed it. It does leave a 6" strip directly under the wires that needs to be hit with some herbicide, and the pre-emergent stuff will be in Wednesday for us to spray the tilled earth.
It is past the traditional time to prune, though pruning takes place throughout the season, so we have to get that done too. This is the 2nd year for serious pruning, with each year moving forward requiring a game plan in regards to what you want to achieve. For our French varietals, this year we are setting up the vines to establish cordons, those are the 2 arms that go out to the left and right from the trunk which are located about 36" off the ground. From these the canes will be developed. For our Nortons, an American grape, we are using a Geneva Double Curtain trellising method, so we are training these using a double-trunk method, which requires these trunks to reach all the way up to the top wire that is 6' off the ground before we start allowing canes to develop. Just getting more upward growth is the goal for this year for the Nortons.
So, this week is dedicated to Block 1, with its tilling, its various spraying, and pruning. It is time intensive, but the weather is good, and in some ways it is soothing and medicinal if you can allow your brain to wander and chill out as you go through the mechanical motions of pruning and tieing.
Well, forget the time to day dream. I have a major problem I am trying to resolve, and even the pruning won't allow me escape it. Jerry has been sick lately, let's just say I think it is self-inflicted, and with that he has become a complete loss at being reliable, and available, during the most important time of the year. He has showed up to work one day, and hasn't called in on any of the others. For all practical purposes he has only worked a couple days over the past month, which is why we are so far behind on Block 1. Therefore I am doing all the previously described work myself. I don't mind doing it but we would be putting posts in already had we shared in the Block 1 effort. I've given up on him.....I've given him way too many Uncle Charlie speeches, called his cellphone so many times that I think I have personally filled his voice message center, and given him way too much slack (or benefits of doubt) where it is now affecting the work that needs to be done. I have put a want ad in the local paper and we'll see if I get any qualified candidates to help on the vineyard. Putting in the posts on schedule has suffered regardless, and as a result I have already pushed back planting the new vines until May 1st.

On a lighter note, I have been asked to speak about setting up a vineyard at an upcoming Virginia Tech Growers Meeting being held in the county in early May. They seem to think that I will have a captive audience even after they learn I've never really farmed before and I'm a Yankee. You figure. It is the desire of the local ag agent to have other vineyards in the county that could help replace, or at least supplement, the traditional crops grown in the area. Setting up a vineyard is a tough nut to crack for farmers used to a century of growing corn, cotton, soybeans, and peanuts. This is not throw down the seed and forget about it farming; this is farming that requires constant attention.
Next up......hopefully posts.

RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK

2010-01-07T11:37:00.001-08:00

The soy was finally harvested from the fields just before Christmas. Combining all the holiday chores with 3 to 4 inches of snow and the worst cold spell in years, real work wasn't started until just after Christmas and extending several days beyond New Years.
Jerry was on the tractor all this time, tilling Block 2 three or four times to get the top 8 inches of soil loosened up. It was so cold at times I wondered if he was frozen to the steering wheel and whether or not the tractor may have been put in some kind of automatic mode to just go in circles, since I didn't see any movement from him for hours at a time.
The field had been utilizing the "no till' method for the last few years. The school of thought is that if you pin seed instead of using disc harrows or tillers, then there would be less erosion and use less labor hours to bring the field to harvest. This may be all true (though I fail to see how it is truly reflected in the bottom line when it seems that you have to put on more weed-killers before and during the growing season to combat their undesturbed growth), but one of the net effects is that the ground is super hard. Hence the tilling of the top soil.
There is so much work to be done. Looking ahead in order to look backward, planting of our grapes is to be around mid-April. Just prior to this we need to put down ground cover seed and give it 5 or 6 weeks to root itself before we start trampling on it. So all this means that all the field prep work needs to be completed by February 28th......a quick 2 months from now.
Poles go in next after Jerry drag screens the fields following tilling. With over 700 poles to pound in you're talking easily 1 1/2 to 2 weeks of work and hoping that the ground isn't frozen solid and there is no severe weather to contend with. Once they are in there is the drilling of the bottom wire holes, running the bottom wire and attaching the drip line, trenching for the branch line of the irrigation system and tieing it in, installing all the drippers.
If all goes well we'll start the pole work before January is over in order to give Jerry as much time as possible to do all the other requirements.
It is not a time to reflect......work needs to be done and the new grapes are the children that need our attention.

ALL THE BEST LAID PLANS....

2009-11-10T06:39:00.000-08:00

With 2009 coming to a close and our sights focused on the 2010 Block 2 expansion, it was finally time to put together the plan for all the work ahead. Initial layouts of Block 2 were made, putting on paper the intended pole assignments (over 700 of them) and the corresponding plantings we will have. Block 2 will be dedicated to reds this year. Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. Both of these, as I've mentioned before, are Bordeaux grapes, and we think they'll do well in our climate. We ordered just over 2700 grapevines, at about a 60/40 mix. These needed to be ordered early in order for them to go through the grafting process in a timely manner, and be ready for planting next April.

For Block 1, where we basically did everything wrong due to equipment malfunctions and poor timing, not to mention an irrigation project that took a year longer than anticipated, we hoped to learn from our mistakes and lay out on paper the steps needed for a more efficient work flow. With that in mind, it all starts with getting the poles in and as much of the irrigation lines ready for when the vines are planted. Block 2 is adjacent to Block 1, but in the desire to maximize return on the farmland, it was being used this year to grow soybeans. "Farmer Mac" leased nearly 25 of our acres for this purpose, and as of November 10th he still had not harvested it. I had asked him to give me a "best guess" on when he thought he might be working the fields, and his answer was 2 weeks after the first frost, which he said normally comes around November 1st. A review of historical data shows his guess was a slam dunk. Past years had November 1st as a 50/50 chance of getting a frost, but current forward looking forcasts had no frost anticipated until well into December. Therefore it became a waiting game for us.

Will Mac harvest the soy anyway, now that his crew had already taken out the corn, cotton, and peanuts ? Or will he truly wait for a frost to determine his timetable ? Turns out there is qualified reasoning for when to harvest soy. The ideal moisture content of soy is 14%. Less than that and the beans will start to crack. Harvesting at 17% or 18% is OK if the storage facilities have driers to knock the moisture content down to prevent storage rot.

As for our timing, we have a large window to get the posts in. Though the ground never really freezes here in Virginia, the days do get shorter, and comfortable working temperatures tend to start later in the morning and end earlier in the afternoon. I had also managed to twist both my sons' arms to help pounding in posts, but even their available time is difficult to schedule. My son Chris has recently become unemployed with the current economic crisis, and realizing he will have to do some real bullwork has motivated him to send out alot of resumes. As for Rich, he works for the Red Sox and between the season's end and Spring training there is a lull that gets shorter the longer we wait to start the post project.

It'll take 3 days to fully till and screen the fields readying them for the layout of the vineyard. Put a day towards laying out the field. It'll take another 5 days or so with help to get all the posts in. During the winter months the holes can be drilled for the wires that hold up the drip lines, and then those need the drippers installed above every plant location. February will be dedicated to tieing in all the driplines to the main irrigation line, and then it is fully prepared so that we can lay down ground cover between the rows of a rye/fescue/clover mix. This should give the ground cover ample time to pop up and take command before the weeds, or so we think.

During these 6 or so weeks our attention can go back to Block 1 where we can start pruning all the vines, with the primary training purpose in 2010 to develop the arms (or cordons). All the wires should have been put up by this time, so that won't be an issue this upcoming year. And after completing the pruning we will be starting the big plan we devised to take control of the weeds.......till, weedwack, and then pre-emergent herbicide.

Other fields are being harvested of their soybeans now by other farmers, and all the planning made will not go to waste, but in the meantime we wait, and wait, and wait.

ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER CHAPTER

2009-10-28T04:20:00.000-07:00

We are wrapping up another year and another chapter in this venture. Each year that goes by is one more closer to first crush. Jerry completed the 2nd round of pruning in late July and August so the vineyard looks like it is in control again. He has steadfastly weedwacked the weeds into submission, using post emergent herbicide to give them their final blow. It has worked to some degree, and hopefully the lessons we learned this year can be transferred to next year, both for Block 1 and our Block 2 expansion.
The spray schedule carried us through mid-September and for the most part it did its job. No bug damage that we could find other than the occasional Japanese beetle having a food orgy. And black rot and other fungicide problems didn't seem to pop up either.
Our main concern regarding these things is that my next door neighbor had an herbicide spray that floated over to the vineyard (and on Jerry) and killed some of our new leaf growth. We didn't have any fruit this year so my concern is more towards killing my help. I'll have to chase the farmer down in the off season and see if we can arrange a way not to have his sprays travel. It didn't seem like he was too concerned about spraying during the evening or an otherwise calm moment.
Of course there are still the deer. They left us alone during the season......too many other good things to eat I guess. But now that we stopped spraying some of the bad taste may have rinsed off in a rain making the grape leaves more appetizing. Just a theory.
We did get some fruit on our Seyval Blancs this year. Most of it we snipped off but we did save some bunches for sugar testing. This year was Diane and my 36th wedding anniversary. I was convinced it was the year of "vineyard equipment". I got her a refractometer (good thing it wasn't the year of the snow shovel) which we put to use and found that we had a Brix reading of 20. This translates to a sugar content of about 10%. If it was a harvest year we would need to let the bunches hang longer.
We also transplanted some our our baby crape myrtles that we had put in the ground when we first moved in. These we have lining one side of the driveway just when you enter the farm. They struggled the first year they were in, but now they are branching out and having a personality that includes upward and outward growth, along with some bright red coloring.

It is Fall now and we also decided to start up a small Christmas tree plot. Diane, through years of subjective analysis, has decided that Fraiser Firs are the best trees for indoor decoration, so she went out and bought 50 trees. I felt that it would be a good tradition in 6 or 7 or 8 years to invite old friends down around Thanksgiving and have them cut a tree for their holiday celebration. We placed them in a plot to the rear of the farm, and shy of the deer once again making their presence known, they are care free with the exception that they are one more thing that Jerry has to water by hand, since there is no water there.

The next real trigger point is November 1st. Why November 1st you ask ? During September I had asked Farmer Mac who is farming all the land I haven't converted yet with soy to give me the best guess as to when he will harvest the beans. His guess at the time was November 1st being the first frost, so within 2 weeks after that time he would be stripping the fields of their bounty. We need Block 2 for our next expansion, which we want to start preparing in the Fall. Through trial and error in Block 1 we need to get the posts in the ground and do a few other things before we start planting in April. More detail on that later. October will be planning for another year, and another chapter.

Rule #1:Never Let The Weeds Get Ahead of You, Rule#2: Never Let...

2009-10-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

As you can see by the title, I am obsessed with getting rid of weeds. I feel they are the major hurdle in achieving a smooth-running, and professional looking vineyard. Of course this also includes the fact that weeds steal important nutrients from the ground, or water required in the growing of the grapes.
The summer of 2009 has fallen into maintenance mode. We for the most part have gone through the vines the first time for their required pruning. It seemed to take forever but that task is behind us. There will be a second pruning later in the summer to rid of growth we don't need considering next year's plan of attack. And if you're putting energy into shoots that just get cut off any, why keep them ?
We also are doing our weekly mowing to keep grass levels low.We don't want them to grow high enough to go to seed; that's a problem we don't want to add to the list. Jerry is also wrapping up the stapling required to support the wires at the 3rd level. We still need to put the top wires in but there isn't the necessity to get it done this year.....we will need them for next year however, especially for the Nortons. That is a good end of season or winter project. So that leaves us the continued watering and deciding how to tackle the weed issue.
We have done al little of everything in that regards. We have tilled, and that works rather well though slow. It takes a good 3 full days to till 42 rows over the 3 acres. The 12" wide tiller is perfect for each side of the wires, giving us a 24" wide till region. The tiller has one speed though.....slow. We have also done some post emergent spraying, which works OK providing the weeds are 6" or so. Taller weeds just stare back at you and ask what you're doing. There are other "agent orange" sprays that'll kill everything they touch which we don't use. Our vines are not mature enough to risk using it. We also have used the weedwacker to some extent. Be aware of the fact that as the string wips around a 1000 miles an hour it can't differentiate between a weed and a 2 year old vine. It is really heartbreaking to watch a trimmer during a moment of lost attention absolutely wipe out an otherwise healthy vine. After a weedwacking the post emergent spray needs to be applied anyway.....which means hoping the wind dies down in a timely fashion to allow you to mount the backpack sprayer and spot spray between each vine.

I think I have a strategy figured out, and 2010 will be the official test. During February or March (the ground never really freezes here in Virginia) we'll till the rows, and then immediately follow it with a pre-emergent spray. It will be a matter of judgement thereafter as to whether or not more tilling is required, or if we can then stay ahead of it with post-emergent spraying. I really would like to keep the weedwacker out of the formula for no other reason than the aforementioned damage it can cause.
There are some spray systems out there that will allow you to mount a directional wand or boot that directs the spray straight down. This reduces the need to have a windless day for application. Nothing's cheap in this business so I'll have to further take a look at it in the off season.
Time becomes even more valuable next year, in as much as we plan another 3 acre expansion which will require its own set of priorites which will yell for attention against Block 1.
Ken has made progress as well (remember Ken ?). We have an area that sits on the side of the gently sloping hill that we have declared to be our future herb garden and picnic area. It had basically been allowed to go wild. Small evergreens sprouted randomly throughout the area. Poison ivy had found a home in and around the cow fence that was bordering it. We developed a plan to remove the fence, relocate all the small trees to make sort of a wall around the area, kill off the poison ivy (what is God's purpose for poison ivy anyway ?), and start mowing the area. He did all those things and it actually looks civilized now. The designated picnic area will make a quiet hideaway adjacent to the Block 2 grapes, under the trees overlooking the herb garden and the rows of vines.

There is never a shortage of work to be done on a vineyard. It can easily encompass 7 days a week with no end in sight. And when I am down at the vineyard I have to go nonstop to try to make up for lost time; I never really succeed at this. When I drive home I already miss it. My pad of paper is on the passenger's seat next to me to take notes as I remember things. I generate a To Do list for when I get back. All the things that need to be done before I head back south again.

GERIATRICS, THE STUDY OF

2009-10-23T06:11:00.001-07:00

The irrigation system had been working perfectly over the last month, and now the new priority was pruning. Jerry had been working diligently though the process is slower than a turtle. Rightly he had been clearing the weeds as he proceeded vine by vine. However, with his concentration to detail and lack of experience, the removal of weeds made progress seem like it was at a standstill. Where I figured he might have gone through the entire vineyard by the time I returned, he was barely 1/4 of the way through. It was time to "bring out the guns", so Diane and I drove down (sorry, Diane took AirTrans, I drove) to help in the pruning.

Pruning is not overly complicated, though if you try to learn it from a book it can be quite perplexing relating the pictures to what actually occurs. Each vine has a temperment of its own, and decides to go in a different direction than what you expect, or its neighbor. A pruner must look at the vine, focus on the final intent of this year's pruning, and then get in there and start chopping no matter how painful it may be.

I call it painful because, as I had previously mentioned, we had let the vines go in year 1. Out of the grafted vine there may have been as many as 5 or 6 shoots that had grown. Many of these had made it easily up to the 3rd wire (54" off the ground) and had a fair amount of leaves to support its growth. But this isn't training a vine to go where it's needed, and unfortunately many of these shoots had to come off in Year 2 to allow the main trunk to grow and thicken.

As you touch each vine and follow the growth pattern, you make cut decisions that just have to be done. After awhile you start apologizing to the vine, maybe if you're tired and slap happy making noises of angst as you snip here, and then there. The pile on the ground can get disturbing, but it's "for the cause". And then you think about next year's strategy, and maybe some pruning should have been done in Year 1 to help alleviate the job required in Year 2.

Pruning is made simple once you can identify the parts of a vine, see what it did from the year before, and have a true understanding of the training process and that year's goal.

The basic parts of a grapevine are, from the ground: the trunk, arms or cordons, canes, canes beget buds, buds beget shoots, shoots beget nodes, and nodes beget tendons, leaves, or fruit. We can split hairs on this a bit, but for now remember that as each year progresses everything gets redefined one step closer to the ground. By that I mean shoots become canes and canes become arms as each year moves forward. Now you may think that with this trading down so to speak you will eventually have a vine that goes the length of a football field, and you wouldn't be far off if it isn't for the yearly pruning to keep the vine on track and trained properly.

Goals for each year vary some based on trellising methods, but for VSP (vertical shoot positioning) the idea in year one is to get the trunk to grow vertically up past the first wire with the real intent to to grow a widespread root system that will support future growth. Year Two, this year, we were trying to get one single vine well past the second wire (our wires are each 18" apart, so the 2nd wire is 36" off the ground). So of the many shoots that grew from last year, we needed to find the cane (last year's shoot is this year's cane) that was the strongest but also went in the general direction we were hoping for. All the others needed to be pruned off.

Next year's goal (Year 3) is to start developing the arms which will go out left and right off the main trunk. I won't go too in depth on next year, but consider that the cane we are taking care of this year will ultimately become an extension of the now trunk, and from this we must develop the arms.

If I haven't lost you yet, remember that Year 2 pruning is basically from the ground up to the first wire. All the work is in the first 18", and the only way I know of to do it is to get right down on the ground and stare at the vine. Up, and down, kneeling, and pruning. Tieing where appropriate to a bamboo stick adjacent to the trunk, sending the vine up to the first and maybe the 2nd wire where tendons can grab once grown. Do this 45 times, the approximate number of vines in each of our rows, and then do it over and over. I thought I was in shape before I started, but after a couple of rows I just couldn't do it the "normal" way. I was in such pain I had to literally crawl to the next vine to proceed. It was torture. And the following day was more of the same. Maybe the joints knew what was coming, but it was a weird combination of knowing they would be exercised to death again or just giving up to the need to move on regardless of the tightening or pain.

Jerry, certainly more agile than me and several inches shorter in height experienced the same thing. It never really got any better. As for Diane, she never complained (I must have been complaining for the 2 of us !). She was also assigned to the Nortons which, even after she pruned them still looked like bushes. They are a very aggressive American variety and would get a different training/trellising method than all the others.

When the week was over we still hadn't gotten over half done. Jerry was now an expert and continued in our absence. Couple this with his mowing duties, and our spray schedule, you can see how he knocked off a half row here, and a half row there. He also had to complete putting staples in to get the vines trained up to the 3rd set of wires. And then there was the weeds, oh those weeds; they will haunt me until we find a system to tackle them.

A GUSHER !

2009-10-22T05:04:00.000-07:00

I was a little nervous leaving the vineyard to 2 guys I really didn't know, and whom really didn't understand fully what we were doing at the vineyard in regards to planting, pruning, trellising, weeding etc. etc. I had no choice though, but at the very first chance I jumped back in my truck and headed south to Virginia to see how things were going and to try to get back on track with the irrigation project.
Needlesstosay, that was my mission (once again), to finally get water through the drippers. We had now gotten all the right parts in, and we were ready to go through all the glueing to get them in place and hooked up. I was somewhat confused at how the main plumbing lines were configured around the filter tanks and had to touch base with Scott Wright who consulted on the job. He "straightened me out" so to speak. All the quarter turns were mounted backwards, so the handles were't doing what we thought they were telling us was happening (hey, not me !).
The time had finally come to turn on the pumps. We were like nervous fathers waiting for the nurse to tell us whether it was a boy or a girl. I sent Jerry down to the vineyard, and via cellphone we went through the countdown as I was ready to toggle the power to the 2 pumps.
When you first flip a switch you are never really sure what the first noise will sound like. Will it be a low quiet hum or will it seem like nails rattling in a pail ? The first sound was a clunk, and then a churning as it pulled the water up from the creek into the filter tanks. Was it time to turn on the booster pump ? There were no instructions for this, but I had put several pressure gauges in the system so I observed these as they signaled the flow of the water down the lines. Pressure had built so much at the booster pump that the gauge maxed out......there's something that needed to be changed......so that told me to kick that pump into action.
I told Jerry that here we go, and flipped the switch to the booster. How much time to get water down the quarter mile of pipe ? The answer.....less than a minute.
"Jerry, let me know when you see drips."
"OK, I'm watching" responded Jerry.
"WE GOT WATER....WE HAVE A GUSHER !!!!!!"
"A gusher ? What do you mean, a gusher ?" I said.
"It's coming out of the ground !"

Not the response I was ready for, but I decided I'd better turn the system off and drive down and figure out what Jerry was talking about. I was eager and timid at the same time. What was I in store for.....was all the work to this point in jeopardy ? My truck raced down the dirt driveway kicking up dust in its wake, and as I turned off the road and towards the row with all the above-ground filtering and regulating assembly, I saw immediately what he was talking about. There was a major leak at that spot, and in less than a minute's worth of pumping we now had a small lake. The water had shot up through the earth and was shooting water in the air......Old Faithful, vineyard style. Or was it more like the oil that the Beverly Hillbillies saw ?
Could be worse I guess. If there ever was a question on how you would spot a leak in the field, the answer is easy.....look for the lake. It did prove to us that the system worked, and we did have enough pressure getting down to the lines. But now we kicked into repair mode and started to dig out the mud surrounding the 2" pipe that was 24" down. There was alot of dirt / mud you can imagine. And in order for us to get to the pipe and elevate it to some degree so the water would back off allowing us to re-glue the joint, we had to dig quite a big hole. We were full of adrenalin however, and now our mission was clear with a true sense of victory ahead of us. It was one of the most rewarding repair jobs I've partaken in. A few hours later the fix was completed, and we decided to let the glue rest overnight for an early morning christening.

I didn't crack open the bottle of Champagne yet, but I did put it on ice. After nearly a year had gone by working on this project. Thousands of dollars, not to mention all the man hours that had gone into it. It was my number one project for I don't remember how many trips I went down to Virginia for. It was now time.

One of the things we did was place a half dozen buckets throughout the vineyard to check on the dripper flow. One of Ed's concerns was that the far end of the vineyard wouldn't get any water after the water passed all the outlets upstream. Interesting question, and we were ready to see if it turned out to be valid. With pails in place, I once again flipped the switches. First the creek pump, and a minute or so later the booster pump. There was now a familiar hum to the sound of the pumps, with initial gurgling of air in the water lines purging itself out to a nice constant flow. Jerry was down at the vineyard and when he saw water coming out of the drippers located above each plant he called and said it was "a pretty thing". I had to go see for myself, and as I slowly drove down the driveway I reflected on all the work that went into this project, which would be just one of many to come.

It was "a pretty thing". Each of the drippers letting out a slow sream of water, theoretically above each plant. I had thought we had installed drippers rated for 1 gallon an hour. Our test showed they were 1/2 gallon per hour drippers, which was fine as long as we knew. That allowed us to just time how long the pumps would stay on. Ed's concern for the most part was resolved. The most distant drippers were operating similar to those closest to the input line. It is amazing how accurate these little tiny plastic drippers are.....the test drippers all operated within a couple of ounces of the measured gallon mark. Not too shabby.

My next step was to come up with a daily chart for Jerry to fill in. He had to monitor the rain and factor that in with his daily pumping schedule. I came up with a ratio of inches of rain equating to gallons of watering. It was based on guesstimated rootgrowth after one year which for lack of any other direction made sense as we were trying to get 6 gallons of water to each grapevine per year. Next year it would take fewer inches of rain since their root structure would reach out farther.

It was now time to make new priorities, and pruning easily became the top one. Though I jumped into this now massive project, I really didn't get too far before my week once again expired. As Jerry was pruning and Ken was working on special projects, Jerry was doing the weeding as he went along and progress went way slower than I envisioned. Ken helped on some of the weeding to accelerate the pruning, but it seemed like the weeds were growing as fast as he was weeding right behind him.

Don't let up. Don't give in. I knew the weeds had a winning streak going but I wasn't going to give up. They "took out" Ed. There had to be a solution to this problem. I just had to do more reading and find out what everyone else does.....and there was the pruning that needed to get done.....the sap was running and new growth was appearing.

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

2009-10-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

It was now May when I finally returned to the vineyard. Ed had sent me a disturbing text message a couple of weeks earlier that said to find someone else to take over the vineyard responsibilities. Ed was always a straight shooter with me so there was no question that he meant it. What was the straw that broke Ed's back I'm not really sure. I think it was a combination of things.....Spring was in the air and for a retired fireman maybe he wanted to get in some fishing. He saw the weeds popping up again and we really didn't find a successful plan of attack yet to keep them in order. Ed had a loving interest in all the grapes that he worked so hard to keep alive, and to now fighting more weeds must have felt like a losing battle. Also the vines were growing in all sorts of directions and they needed major pruning in 2009. We had left them alone the previous year so we needed to spend some real time in training them. Because the vines were still small, most of the pruning was close to the ground; this in itself required alot of knee bending and hip turning, both of which would have affected Ed's "war" injuries. And then the irrigation system still needed tweaking.....the parts we were sent to tie the secondary line in with each of the rows didn't work, and we needed to order different ones. I'm sure Ed saw it as a never-ending project.

So I went down to Virginia and started to do some tilling to help out on the weed problem, leaving only the weeds left directly under the wire for another method to conquer. When Ed showed up on that Monday he proceeded to use a Stihl tiller to reach in these tough spots, but by this time they were already 12" tall and easily bound up the tines. An hour of this under his belt pursuaded him to once again bring up his notice to depart, which I having no real say in the manner graciously accepted. Prior to this I had put a classified ad in 2 local weeklys, and I was going to be interviewing possible candidates in the next day or two in hopes of finding another Ed.....someone who could truly take care of the grapes in my absence.

Farm work is hard. It demands your full attention, from sun up to sun down, maybe up to 7 days a week. Some jobs can't be done when it's raining, while others can't be done when it's windy. Being too hot initiates certain action (or inaction), too cold forces priorities to change. And as I said in a previous blog, grapes need your full attention.

On the one hand with unemployment so high you would think I would have received alot of candidates to apply for the job. On the other hand the locals know how hard farm work is, or maybe there was some hesitation on being able to learn what was required in a vineyard. There is quite abit of bull work, but there also is a very methodical approach to the work that needs be done. All in all I interviewed maybe 8 to 10 people, one of which had vineyard experience who played hardball relative to the wage he wanted. I'm not sure who lost in this case, but we couldn't meet eye to eye on terms so he didn't come to work for me.

I ended up hiring 2 guys, Jerry and Ken. Jerry was to be my primary vineyard person, while Ken was to be a backup but primarily assigned to special projects. We had quite a few little things that needed to be done to achieve the ultimate look, and none of these projects really became priority #1 when I went down there, but they still needed to be done nevertheless.

So towards the end of the week I ended up hiring them, with Jerry receiving one day's training before I had to return up North. Ken received no input from me at all, so I put his start date on the back burner until I could return.

Jerry's main assignment was to prune grapes while I was gone. I'm sure he must have been a bit tentative with only a day's worth of training and no one to refer to when he came across a tangled vine. He also did a little weeding by hand using a cultivator (claw) and took over the mowing responsibility. He had his work cut out for him with 2000 sprawling vines to prune, and knowing he was shy on the pruning I wasn't horribly worried about returning to a bunch of sticks sticking out of the earth where full vines had been. And there was also putting some of the finishing touches on the drip system.....I wasn't sure where Ed had left off so Jerry went around and inspected each vine and dripper to assure they were all in place.

ROME WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY...OR 2

2009-10-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

2009 was a year of few setbacks, mostly being progress measured in small steps and renewed optimism. The irrigation project was still front and center as we entered into the early Spring. The electrician had completed his work in the pumphouse, along with wiring everything he could do short of the hooking up of the main line which required the trenching. Ed was as determined as I was to get the system up and running. He still had memories of his watering last year, and he saw the emphasis that had put on getting it all in and I think he just wanted to see it in operation....finally.
We found a rental place in Petersburg that had Ditch Witch trenchers so we rented one for a week's time. I personally didn't have a clue as to how much time was involved in digging all the trenches we had in mind, but a week seemed an adequate amount of time to do the job. Ed picked it up one morning and with it we were off to the races.
First, the trench for the electrical lines. Ed had run one before, so he felt comfortable taking this machine and starting her up. Just aim Ed and he was off. This machine, if you've never seen one in action, resembles a huge chainsaw on wheels. The chain and bar gouging the earth and sending the dirt off to the side with no effort at all. It could do a couple of feet a minute, digging at a depth of 18" to 24". Here we found a use for the now infamous yellow plastic line with all the colored tape markings. Ed needed a guideline to follow, and since you have to walk backward when digging a little guidance to maintain a straight line came in handy. Within a short period of time the first trench was done, whereby I immediately called the electrician and told him we were ready for him to hook-up the complete irrigation system. He would come the next day to finish the job inside of just a few hours.

Now we were ready to go from the pump house down to the vineyard. Line of site , along with the yellow line got us to the driveway, and now we had to sort of follow the road. We made our guiderope 15' from the center of the driveway, where the only real issue was missing a telephone line that was buried near the house. The utilities have what is equivalent to our "Dig Safe" up north, and they had come out on one my previous trips to mark its location. When all you need to do is make a trench, progress seemed to advance rapidly. It is just a matter of grinding it out so to speak, and taking a turn down by the vineyard to make a trench that follows the end of the rows. With the power now hooked up, we could almost feel the excitement in the air as we were getting near to the end. Well, not quite. We still had to assemble all the PVC pipe, where the major run was using 2" diameter pipe. But that was later in the week, and lugging all the pipe to its approximate location needed to be done first.
A mile worth of pipe is alot of pipe. Even though we had only a quarter mile run down to the vineyard, we were putting pipe in for the next 2 or 3 year's worth of expansion. The vineyard was defined as Block 1, and along the way we passed by 3 future blocks that would eventually need irrigation. With that in mind, and the complete manifold already part of the pumphouse planning, it was decided to run the major lines to each of these blocks too. In the trench then we initially ran 4 lines, and as we got to the junction for each block we capped the specific pipes off, locating them on the surface with a identifying marker, and then continued on. Once we got beyond Block 2 which was just "upstream" from Block 1, we just had a single pipe to contend with.
As we approached Block 1, we took our bend and surfaced by the first row nearest the driveway. Here we have a final filtering and pressure regulation for the 41 rows of drip lines. Once tied to this, we dropped back underground and proceeded down the end of the rows, putting in tie-ins for all drip lines. The tie-ins popped above the surface at the end of each row, theoretically being protected from mower damage by the end post lines and anchors once in place.

We had come a long way, but once again my week ran out and I had to return to New England with the job unfinished. There was still more work to be done by Ed in the meantime to get the irrigation system finalized. There were a dozen or so drip lines that had to be installed. And more drippers had to be inserted above some of the plants. Spring was with us also, so Ed's responsibilities of mowing were started up again, and we had gotten our replacement vines in that needed to be planted where the dead ones had been identified. I was gone but eager to get back; we were so close to getting the irrigation system in and the weather was due to get warmer. The vines needed water and I was determined not to have Ed carry it in his truck like last year.

WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE, BUT...

2009-09-29T04:55:00.000-07:00

The remainder of 2008 had one major theme....getting water to the vineyard. Ed was spending hours lugging water from the well to the vines via the 55 gallon drum method. Surry County was in its 2nd year in a row of drought conditions and getting water to help the vines survive was paramount.
The rest of his time was mowing, or doing all the little things to help the cause. There was little time for weeding, though he squeezed some time in for drilling those wire holes we now needed to hold the drip system piping.
Every trip I took had irrigation as the priority, so, recognizing it might take me twice as long to figure out how to do it, Glenn Slade made a recommendation whom I contacted to help jump start this project. Scott Wright was a retired Va.Tech guy who was an expert in irrigation systems. Though he spent most of his consulting efforts on golf courses and new developments, he took on the challenge of a vineyard. With my significant weakness in Fluid Dynamics in college, he was able to quickly calculate the size pumps I needed to pull water up hill from our source, get it through all the filter systems that we had lined up, and then shoot down the driveway over a quarter mile to get to the end of the rows, taking into consideration the pressure loss over that distance.

It was more than just a tinker toy set to assemble. We needed to pour concrete to make 2 pilings to support the first in line self-priming pump (there is a real play on words) near the creek, make our equivalent of an aqueduct to get the water up 20' or 30' of hill , get a shed built to hold all the equipment, design a manifold system for the first block and allow for all the subsequent expansions, not to mention getting it all wired up with 220v and run all the pipe.

We now recognized that we had alot of work to be done, and it wasn't going to be done overnight. Ed dedicated his time to drilling the holes and running the wire, and when that was done he stretched out the drip lines and installed all the drippers ( 1/2 gallon per hour)......one for each plant. This took him into the Spring of 2009. As for me, I spent all my time on the forward end. Figuring out where to put the pilings and getting them ready for the concrete, making the small design changes I wanted on the shed, which Amish Sheds out of Petersburg was able to do in a very skilled timely manner, and then after it was delivered (dropped in place on a dime I might add), I assembled the irrigation system just as Scott had designed it. With a few twists and turns, a missing part here, an additional part needed there due to extra bends in the flow or my particular required quirks, I got it finally together in mid-Winter. It was time to get an electrician in to do the first half of the wiring, which included all the hook-ups, electrical panel in the pump house, and tieing the the creek pump to the main box.

The 2nd half of his wiring had to be held back until we made all the trenches for the pipe. He needed a trench to bury his source line which came 89' across the driveway from the service barn. This was scheduled for April (April seems to be a popular month in a vineyard) when we hoped everything else was all wrapped up so we could dedicate our time to dropping almost a mile's worth of pipe and tieing it into the 41 drip lines that Ed had put together during the winter.

Our vines were now dormant during this winter period. It wasn't particularly cold by northern standards. We had done our inventory in late Fall to see how many vines we needed to replace that didn't make it through that first year......maybe a hundred or so.

We had decided to make 2009 a "recovery" year. We just had too much on our platter to deal with to worry about an expansion. We had to finish the irrigation system or it would have been crazy to hand water all these vines 2 years in a row. We needed to replant some of the vines. We needed to start and maintain a spray schedule. We needed to do some serious pruning to get the vines trained on the trellis. And we had to resolve the weed issue....somehow.

A "TELEPHONE POLE FOREST"

2009-09-24T15:01:00.000-07:00

The hydraulic post driver was now fully operational, and on my return trip this was the top project for Ed and me. All the vines had been planted, and during the last couple of weeks Ed had been trucking water back and forth from the house well to keep the new plants watered. With 2000 vines at 1/4 to 1/2 gallon a day, that's alot of trucking. Ed was probably the only one wishing for non-stop rain just so he could skip doing it. It wasn't like he was carrying pails upon pails; he had a 55 gallon drum in the back of his truck that he filled and then used a standard hose with "gravity feed" to water the vines. It was still alot of work even with this. Couple this with the mowing he did weekly, and a certain amount of weeding, and you can see how his time was spent.

When these poles were dropped we only had half a clue as to how we were going to proceed with the job. One of the things we did was break all the bundles, determine which end would go in the ground, and predrill our first wire holes that were to be 18 inches above the ground surface after they were pounded in. It just made sense that it would be easier to drill them lying on the ground instead of in a vertical position. We loaded about 20 poles at a time onto the pickup truck for distribution, using the tape marks on the yellow rope we had also used for plant location. This is when we found another problem. Turns out the rope really did stretch, especially over 450' of row length, and that everytime we moved the rope a bit to plant the vine (or auger the hole), the rope was really pulled out of position, affecting every location down the line. What a mess. Plants were to be 6' on center, poles 24' on center. Putting the first vine 3' from the first pole, then going 6', 6', and another 6', (leaving 3' to the next pole) we would be giving each vine 3' in each direction for trellis training and growth. Our actual measurements were close at best, and putting some plants literally on top of a true pole location at their worst. It bothered me (and still does) to no end how 2 educated guys couldn't get a simple pole / plant layout to work in a simple grid pattern. We did the best we could though, compromising in some areas and moving vines in others. We decided future layouts would use a steel cable only, and discard this rope idea.

This problem, though accentuated by this rope idea, was really due to not getting the poles in the ground first. Pole pounding is a long tedious process, and we wouldn't have been so inclined to use the yellow rope if we only needed to be true on center , which we used a surveyor's transit for, and be 24' apart, easily measured by the cable or a long tape measure. Once the poles are in, laying out the plants would have been easy.

There are 2 sizes of poles. The 10' long end posts, that are 5" - 6" diameter, that go 3' into the ground, and the smaller much easier to handle 3"-4" line posts, that are 8' long and go in the ground only 2'. Though the hydraulic driver was able to handle the end posts, it did take seemingly forever to drive them in. Remember, the posts have blunt ends and had to go in 3'. Driving straight down, with all the earthly resistance , is a tough job even using hydraulics. It maybe took 15 minutes to pound one in, and we had 82 of these to do ! We resolved the time issue by using a post hole digger to start the poles, digging down maybe half the required depth and letting the driver do the rest. It cut our time in half, thank heavens. And you couldn't even get these to vibrate once they were in. Line posts comparitively, were a snap. Their biggest issue was because they were smaller, if they hit a rock or a hard spot they would go in crooked. Though we were really aware of this, Ed ended up digging out maybe 20 of them to straighten them . The vineyard was now easily identifiable when someone drove by on State Route 10. There were nearly 500 poles in the ground, dwarfing the vines they would someday support.

As you can see, it took some time to do this part of the job. Oh, and those pre-drilled holes ? We couldn't see them after we brought the poles out and put them in position, and the poles sometimes twisted when they were put in, which would have twisted the wires had we used them. We also changed our minds sometimes on which end of the pole should go in first. Enough of that. We gave up and just decided to ignore the hole locations and to drill them later. When we finally got to this, we set up a portable generator on the back of the truck and used a drill with a level on its face to keep it aligned, and placed the bit on a jig that located the hole exactly 18" above the ground. It was much easier than we would have guessed, and alot more accurate.

When we finished with the hole drilling, it was now time to run the lowest wires. Bamboo stakes were used to support the vertical growth of the vines, but the wires were needed to run the black flexible PVC pipe needed in the drip system. But now was the time for chasing the latest problem, and strange as it may seem getting water to the plants efficiently had to take the back burner. We were getting eaten alive by Japanese beetles, which came out in droves on June 1st. And with the hot humid days before us, weeds as well as airborn fungi & mold became our primary concerns. I raced out to our local AgriSupply (local is 50 miles away) and picked up a backpack sprayer. We only had 2000 vines, and none of them were above knee high yet. I felt it would be able to do the job. Wrong again. A backback sprayer only held about 5 gallons, which didn't get us very far. The very next day I raced out once again to pick-up a 55 gallon ATV-sized sprayer which I put in the back in my truck, locked and loaded to spray the vineyard.

The good news ? 55 gallons was enough to do the entire vineyard, riding along down each row in my truck, using a hand wand to direct my spray on each vine. The bad news ? Though the rows were supposed to be 9' on center, they weren't, and I got my truck wedged in-between 2 endposts, bringing my nice shiny truck to an end. There was no debate on which was the immovable object. The truck now has "personality" with what I call "story lines" on its right side showing that this is no longer a highway truck, it is now a working farm truck. Needlesstosay, when Ed saw what I did to my truck, proclaimed I would get in a boatload of trouble with the Mrs., and that he wasn't going to subject his nice shiny F150 truck to row driving. Once again, Weeds 2 - Opposition 0.

IT DOESN"T GET ANY EASIER...

2009-09-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

No, it really doesn't. If you think about getting into farming because it has sort of a richness to it, getting oneself integral with the earth, first remove the romance and supplement it with long days, backbreaking work, and never-ending tasks. Now figure that mother nature is going to test your stamina as well as conviction and that is more like what you're in for with starting a vineyard.

Unlike large scale commercial farming, this is truly hands on. Every vine will get looked at and touched numerous times during the growing season, and then a couple more times when they are dormant. Unlike a field of soy that is planted, maybe sprayed a few times, then mechanically harvested, the vines will demand your time, all the time. No sooner do you finish going through the vineyard are you then called back to the beginning to start it all over again. Enough of a warning as 2008 begins.

This is the official first year. We prepped the land for all that that was worth. We fertilized and lymed. To some degree we put in a ground cover that can without a doubt be confused with a blanket of weeds. Now was the time to officially become a vineyard. We had ordered about 2000 grapevines from Double A Vineyards out of New York State, with an April delivery.

For all this to get a jump start, and recognizing that I still had "a real job", I hired a retired fireman by the name of Ed, "Big Ed". Picture combining Santa Claus with the fried chicken Colonial, and add 12" to his height. This guy was huge. He had soouthern sensibility and was able to speak his mind in a well thought out way, without stepping on your toes. He was not afraid to get right into the thick of things and provide the know how and where-with-all that was required to get the job done.

Our "plan" was to till our rows and set in all the posts before the plants arrived. Through experimentation with a 3-point auger on the back of the tractor trying to set fence posts in the prior year, I had decided that the soil, which was a sandy loam, didn't have enough structure, moistness, and clay to hold the fence firm after a year. The very best alternative was purchasing a hydraulic post driver that hooked up once again to the back of the tractor, that could drive a 10' blunt end post up to 3' in the ground. This was another multi-thousand dollar piece of equipment that was not in the original capital goods plan.

Now one would think tilling a row 42 times would be an easy task. I just took my large 5' wide tiller that I had used last year to prep the 3 acres, and removed tines to give me 24" of till width. Now the engineer in me decided the best way to maintain a straight line was to build a sight that mounted on the hood of the tractor, much like a sight for a rifle. Keep the 2 pins lined up, aiming for a spot at the end of the row, and presto, a straight line.

I put the New Holland in the lowest, slowest gear I could, and started her up. I held that line as best I could, bumps and all, and 10 minutes later I finished the row, ready to start another. Once again I lined up my sights, focused on the target at the end of the row, and began.
When it was time for me to analyze my work, I got off the tractor and eye-balled my lines. What a let down it was. I had made the most beautiful set of parallel curves one could make. Turns out the tractor tilted when it got to gradual changes in slope, and without warning it just tilled followed the path it was aimed at, with the sights ever so slightly tilting in unison. It was a lost cause and another failed experiment. I found it was actually straighter to just aim visually with the endpoint and accept whatever variance there was in the tilled row.

Now we were ready for the posts. We tried to mount the hydraulic driver on the back of the tractor, only to find we needed a chain hoist to rig it up the first time. The machine weighed a ton, and it was impossible to get it in position without help. Surry Equipment became involved, even though the driver was purchased over the internet (hey, I saved $600). They helped to get it mounted, and then when the main cylinder sprung a huge leak and needed to be replaced, they were able to fix it and get me back in the fields. Problem was, the place I purchased the driver from sent us the parts (it was under warranty), though I struggled to get the right parts in and when it was all said and done, they wouldn't cover the labor cost that Surry Equipment put in to getting it to operate right (there went the savings). It is a great machine, but it goes back to my trying to save a little by not buying locally. In my defense I didn't know Surry Equipment carried anything like a hydraulic post driver until I had them look at it after the fact.

All of the juggling of replacement parts for the driver took nearly 3 weeks, and needlesstosay, that was long after the grapevines arrived. We had no visual clues on exactly where to plant these creatures, excepting for the tilled rows which were already labeled as no where near straight. Here came my next engineering brainstorm, a "prestretched" length of marine polypro rope, where we marked every 6' with a piece of colored electrical tape. My father, who came to the farm to watch this adventure unfold, helped me with this huge 500' spool of bright yellow cord putting on the colored tape. Green for the plant, and black for the posts. Plants were 6' on center, poles 24' on center.

The grapevines arrived right on time. We purchased about equal quantities of Seyval Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Viognier, and Norton. Heading out to Row 1 we decided to tackle the Seyval Blancs first. We laid out the yellow cord the full length of the row, about 450', pulling tight and whipping it to move it where we wanted it to go. We then tried to use a small auger on the end of an electric drill to make our holes. That didn't work; the auger got clogged too easily and really didn't give us the diameter hole we needed to plant the vine. Then Ed grabbed a post hole digger, which worked fine but after a few holes we multiplied our efforts by 2000 and decided someone would be carrying us away on a stretcher were we to keep using this method. I then went to Home Depot and rented a gasoline powered auger. To put this on the back of a tractor, or a truck, and drag it around a vineyard trying to center the bit over the correct spot was downright slow. Ed and I pushed and pulled the auger around the vineyard, up one row and then down the next. It took 3 days to do 2000 holes, but we did it. Behind us Diane and my father planted the vines, and when we were done we jumped in to move the project along. It finally got done, and because none of the irrigation lines were in, the vines had to be hand watered to keep them alive. I applaud Ed for doing this, because without his help they would have surely died with Surry County going through its 2nd drought season in so many years. I had to go back to New England after this, and my return trip would be timed with the post driver finally able to be utilized. Even with the posts in, there was still alot of work that needed to be done......

2007 - GRASS vs. WEEDS: WEEDS WON

2009-09-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

Each year tends to take on a personality of its own. There is always something to do in a vineyard, whether it is a new one or an established one. There are only so many man hours available, and as priorities change they jolt the overall plan. Certainly everything needs to be eventually done, but some things just seem to push their way up in front of all the others.

Just as 2006 was the year we bought the farm, initiating the steps required to fulfill the big dream, 2007 was the year for planning to make sure we were doing everything "right". The demands for the land seemed limited in this Year 1, so we were confident that we could do the small amount of ground prep. that was required and layout the vineyard in a very logical and methodical way.

For anyone who has purchased their first house, you must remember the days when you have this project to do and that project to do. And everytime you went into a hardware store there was another tool you needed to buy. At first it may have been simple things like shovels, hammers, screwdrivers, or saws. As honey do lists got longer, maybe a hand power saw or a table saw was required to "properly" keep a true edge and complete the job in a professional a manner. Hand tools range from $10 to $40, and when you start getting up into the bench tools and equipment the prices for these "must haves" jump up to $299.95. Now take this concept and transfer it over to a farm. Starter tools or equipment cost a minimum of $400, but after getting the few you need at this price the new level of pain quickly jumps to $700 to $1000. This level is also quickly exhausted and the new level is $4000 to $6000. Putting aside the required purchase of a $13,000 heavy duty farm tractor, what we're talking here is real money.

All I wanted to do in 2007 was plant grass. We have 32 acres of land, of which we figured 25 could be farmed. Our game plan was to convert it to vineyard about 3 acres at a time. With all the costs involved in this conversion, including posts, wire, irrigation, not to mention all the grapevines and labor associated with it all, we figured 3 acres was all we could handle. The balance of the land that we weren't converting would be leased for the farming of corn, cotton, peanuts, or soy.....the typical crops rotated through the lands down there in Virginia.

What is there to growing grass ? It started with doing our homework regarding ground cover in vineyards. There is a fair amount of information on the web regarding this, but like all information you obtain this way it ranged to "why bother ?"........the rows were primarily bare dirt in Napa, to just letting the natural weeds do the job, to having a proper ratio of ryes, fescues, and clover We opted for the blend and took significant pains in trying to develop the correct mix that we were going to use. With this mix formula we went to a Johnson's grain store right in Surry to place our order, months in advance of our need. Steve Johnson became our first "go to" guy in setting up our vineyard. We also got a soil test, which led us to having Steve make an application of lyme and later fertilizer to bring all the readings of to par.

Steve took our order for seed, gave me a price, and recorded our need date, leaving me now to go to Surry Equipment to get what was needed to cut this new bed of grass that was going to come up in that Spring. Dave Berryman was the inside sales guy who helped us here. What was great about Dave is that he listens, puts his advice forward whether it is in agreement or not with my original thought process, and is willing to provide never-ending help to get us what we need. He realized I was a novice at all this without reminding me of what little I knew.

Word to the wise.........if you are going to make a major investment in a machine, especially one critical to your operation, like a tractor, stay local. Sure you can price shop to make sure you're not getting hosed, but nothing beats calling your local provider to fix a problem, immediately if need be. That sense of security is worth the few extra bucks you might spend, if you do have to spend extra at all. Most of these guys will treat you very fair because they want all your business, not just what little they win via the cheapest bid.

I've mentioned the tractor, of which I bought a shiny new New Holland 30 hp. with PTO / 3-pt. capability. This is a bare necessity. But to ready the earth you need sometning like a tiller, and I bought one that is 5' wide. Makes the one you rent down at Home Depot or Taylor Rental look like kid stuff. I could do my garden at home in 5 minutes with this baby ! And then you need a spreader of sorts, and of course it needs to be adaptable to the 3-pt. system, and then finally you need a finish mower. Farm equipmentt is not cheap, but in its defense it is the most solid equipment you can buy. Simple in design but solid in construction, it is heavier than lead and is meant to handle alot of abuse. That being said, it does need a minimum of care and if you can shelter it after use it'll last a lifetime. At least that's how I justified all this capital expense for the first 3 acres.

When the time came for me to pick up the grass seed, it wasn't ready. Also, the mix I wanted wasn't available either. My brain was ready to burst. Here I was traveling 12 hours to get to the farm only to find out that the best laid plans hadn't been laid at all. The seed wouldn't be available for a couple more weeks, and I couldn't make the trip back down to Virginia to spread the seed in that time slot. I had to hire a guy down in the area to spread the seed. Though the price I paid may have been fair, it still was a tough nut to swallow not wanting to delegate the task from the beginning. I felt my first chance to start the process had been taken away from me, but I had to accept it and move on.

Weeks went by and Steve got the seed to the contractor. Following that I was like the father of a newborn. I would call Steve and ask him if it had sprouted yet, and over the coming weeks he gave me the play by play. He drove by the farm regularly and took a quick look as he passed. Route 10 however is maybe 15' below land level, so his grass reports were from a distance and based on quick visuals. His reports were positive though and with that I settled into a position of confidence that we were back on track. I scheduled my next trip down a month after the seed went in with the intention of mowing the 3 acres with my new toys.

Weeks went by. I was getting edgy. I was eager to get down and start the physical part of farm work. When I arrived I felt the same as Jack felt when he saw the beanstalk. The grass was waist high ! I knew the land was fertile, and things grew down here like crazy, but I never could imagine the growth I saw. After a nights rest to recover from the long drive, I immediately got the tractor and mower ready for the cutting that needed to be done.

It took most of the morning to cut through the large stems. White powder covered the blue hood of the New Holland. All the stalks looked chewed up instead of showing a nice clean cut. I swear some of them were big enough to be used for lumber, but the tractor and mower survived the ordeal.

My major thought was that I can't wait 4 or 5 more weeks for my next mowing, I had to do it sooner. I scheduled my next trip for 3 weeks away. And three weeks went by very fast only to have me find once again grass that was 3 to 4 feet high. I tried identifying the grasses, and though I knew what rye was, and what clover looked like, I had no clue what fescue (2 types) looked like so I just identified them as such. Foolish me.

Glenn Slade is the local Virginia Tech. Co-Op agent for the area. He was the first person I had talked to to try to understand this farming jazz and what the county could offer in regards to advice. By his own admission he knew very little about grape growing. Whenever a farmer had an issue with one of the big 4 crops he is able to get the answers needed. I went in after one of the mowings and just talked to Glenn about my observations, and out of simple curiosity he decided to come out to the farm and see what was happening. What it did was confirm how much of a city boy I was.

Glenn is an optimistic guide of guy in a real world kind of way. He is himself a farmer of many decades along with holding the Co-op Agent job. He came out and in his matter of fact kind of way he was able to identify every kind of weed I had growing in my fields. Weeds ? I asked him to identify the fescue for me and with some hard searching he was actually able to find small clumps of it here and there. The 3 foot grass was really marestail and a couple of other potent weeds. You see, down In Virginia you don't plant grass seed in late Spring. It only gets burned out and the weeds dominate the landscape. It wouldn't be so bad but later after the grass lost the war several people who were well aware of the goings on could have told me that the seed wasn't going to take.

I guess it is what it is........locals don't want to butt into someone else's business unless they are asked to, especially if it is to a new guy on the block who is planting grapes for the first time in that county since Jamestown was founded.

Recognizing that sometimes you get dealt a bad hand, I decided to overseed in the Fall, preferably in October. Up north we wouldn't think of planting that late, but in Virginia there is still enough time to establish the seed. And it is when the weeds are dormant and won't conflict with the growing grass. Our first big lesson learned.....and not to be our last.

In October one has to think about the following year. You see, with vitus vinifera grapevines they have to be grafted with American rootstock, so early ordering is a must to assure timely delivery. I chose "Tax Day"....April 15th, for our first 2000 grapevines to be delivered. I'm not sure how appropriate that date was, I just knew it was one I wouldn't forget.

DO WE OWN THE LAND OR DOES THE LAND OWN US ?

2009-09-18T05:25:00.000-07:00

Diane and I were now the proud owners of a soon- to- be vineyard. Well, I guess it isn't technically a vineyard until we plant our first vines, but that will come in ample time.

Shortly after the long distance closing we made it down to Virginia to see what we had purchased.We decided to spend a long weekend down there, getting the keys from Mike, and opening and closing all the doors and drawers to get a basis point on what we needed to do over the coming months before we could use it as our working retreat from our professional lives up north.

What we found was a fairly well built house (fortunately), though the interior design was somewhat confusing and the last time the interior was updated must have been back when the Brady Bunch was popular. We could see where the previous owner must have taken the advice of the realtor and completely painted the interior.....and I mean completely painted the interior. Ceilings, walls, moldings, door, cabinets.....all one color, a sort of beige. Look at it this way, it made for a great basecoat for our redecoration plans !

There were little things that bugged us.....toilets all seemed to have small leaks in the flappers, one of the dual ovens didn't work, the well pump seemed to be set wrong, and there was a leak near the hot water heater. Oh, and there were the field mice that decided winter was coming and the house provided an opportunity to stay under shelter. All of this was irritating but not too unexpected moving into an old dwelling on a farm. But then came October.......5 inches of rain inside of 24 hours washed out our driveway ! And I mean washed out. A Sherman Tank would have had difficulty getting up the driveway. The way we heard about it was from our oil man. We had ordered a delivery of heating oil to top off our tank but when he drove into the property he was unable to traverse the washout. They called with the bad news, and $4500 later we had to bring in a crew to regrade the driveway and put in a gravel base which had been swept away. Diane and I went down to the vineyard to watch them do the grading, and along with this issue Diane discovered that the furnace didn't work either ! The good news was that the local Surry Hardware store was also an all-purpose operation that had someone on staff that fixed these kind of things, and within a very quick timeframe they got it working properly.

Welcome to the neighborhood !

All we could do was grin and bare it, and start planning for the upcoming year of land prep. and planning, and getting the house so that it was livable. Pray for no more catastrophies. A vineyard is an expensive enough venture without these unknowns creeping in.

Virginia Real Estate 101

2009-09-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

The vineyard currently is in its 2nd full year of operation, and following this little excerpt the stories will be more attuned to setting up the vineyard and getting the real process going. But to complete the story......

As I mentioned Mike Lyttle was a key player when it came to finding the "ideal site". He knew what we were looking for, and he also knew vineyard land requirements, which were not necessarily the same. You see, one can read all they can and talk to as many people as time allows, but the fact is that theory and actuality seldom cross paths. Sure, we wanted a south facing slope. Sure, we needed a water source for both irrigation and to make a microclimate. We wanted soil that drained well and was somewhat fertile, and a group of neighbors that would be both helpful and open-minded to what we wanted to do. And of course we wanted to fit in, a couple of Yankees coming down into Southern territory. All this is well and good, but the fact of the matter is that half of those starting a vineyard inherited their land while the other half just had to grab the best piece of land available and make the best of it.

I have seen PBS specials showing grapes growing basically out of a stone covered land with pebbles as big as golf balls, and I have read how there are vineyards in every state of the union. So, even though theory is great, it comes down to finding the best piece of land possible, combined with the right cost, and all with the right timing.

Diane and I had a target for first crush, and knowing this we backed into our start date, and then further into our "time to start looking" kick-off. In this venture there is nothing available that would lead to a quick reward, unless of course money is no object and someone could purchase a running vineyard / winery. There are many out there. It was money we didn't have though (more on that later) and besides, I already defined what makes me happy and the major item is by making something from nothing, which raw land to vineyard to winery certainly meets that bill.

Mike ended up taking a map and making a circle on it. Periodically he would jump in his car and drive this loop, looking for Real Estate signs along the way that might show land for sale. He did this for several weeks, maybe a couple of months, when he finally came across a decent sized piece of land that was undeveloped, over on the Surry side. It was 85 acres with a couple of small out buildings. Perfect land, 5 to 10 minutes from the ferry with good road access.
Typical of how things seemed to go when searching for land 600 miles away from home, Mike sent us pictures and as much legal info. that he could dig up. He highly recommended the land, and from northern standards (that's all we had to go by) it seemed reasonably priced. One catch though, they didn't want any title search or surveying of the land to confirm what they were selling ! Huh ! As good as it sounded they were unwilling to allow the time needed to do a full due diligence. The deal was like that of 2 buddies shaking hands and taking each others word for it. Hardly how we handled real estate in New England. Unfortuantely we had to let it go. Too much to risk on a wing and a prayer. I did see the land at a later date though and it was pretty. Some local developer bought it and apparently is trying to solicit potential buyers for smaller parcels.

It wasn't long afterwards that Mike found another property, also in Surry. Camera phone pictures, as well as internet photos started coming in rapid fire. He had driven around the property with had one major driveway, a ranch style home with a service barn, right on State Route 10, all situated on 32 acres plus or minus. Everything down there is "plus or minus". He dug up what existed of a plot plan and more with his fair share of difficult conversations with the seller's realtor, and once again strongly suggested we put a bid on it if we wanted it.

Real estate, especially that with value or location, doesn't come up often in Surry or in that neck of the woods. We were told that generally a family has to have some financial difficulty to spin off a piece of land and not leave it to other family members, though that wasn't the particular case here. We are talking about land and homes that have been in the family for generations and generations. If it is a nice piece of land, locals will grab it before the sign is put in the ground out by the road. Good real estate is on the market for only days, if it ever gets that far. It was a pace I wasn't used to in New England (who says the south moves at a slower pace ?). We were going on pure faith, site unseen except for Mike's pictures and input. We put an opening bid on the property with what we felt were normal conditions and contingencies, and this is when the fireworks began.

I have purchased alot of real estate in my days. Personal residences as well as commercial property for my business. After a while you begin to see the pattern. All the legalities, the surveys, the financial approvals. There is a way of doing things, and it pretty much has to follow a certain order to be done correctly and efficiently. But the realtor (or is it Virginia'a way of doing things ?) would have none of it.

I suggested getting a survey to be taken, at my expense. The map we were given had borders that were defined by colored rocks, fallen trees, sites in the distance, you name it. With the survey I suggested that if it came out more than the plus or minus, I'd pay a prorated increase, and that if it came out under I would pay less. They would have nothing to do with it......the price was set, not negotiable for even the most valid reasons. Where have I heard that before ? And then to make it contingent based on financing, even with a time constraint, they didn't care. This was the price, they expected a buyer to have a trunk of cash, and that was that. The realtor even tried to tell me that the acreage was probably more because of the rolling hill in the back providing more square footage of workable land. Trust me , it gets worse but I'll stop here. We had to rush and get financial approvals on land that wasn't even a signed deal (who does this kind of thing ?).

In any event, we finally made an offer. Diane and I hadn't seen or walked the property at all. And they approved. Two weeks later we made it down to Surry to see what we got ourself into, including driving up the driveway and turning around and driving away. Once the seller's realtor found out we did this she called Mike and yelled at him for our "trespassing" ! You figure. And then when we needed one more day to get the banks and signatures to sign off on the closing, she refused saying the seller was going to Florida the next day and couldn't move the closing (sorry, we were told by neighbors that he never left for Florida). We used Federal Express to shuffle all the paperwork, and for the first time I didn't get to go to my own closing due to this strict unilateral deadline.

I had a strange combination of feelings. Frustration at how complicated the purchase and closing had become. Grateful that Mike made some really good calls on the real estate, and the extra effort he put in dealing with the seller's realtor. Bewildered at how this level of legal transaction can be treated so casually. Miffed at how we were basically introduced to southern hospitality with such a negative attitude. And wonder....wondering what we got ourselves into purchasing land, a house unseen with the next 40 years of our future being started on a once again on a wing and a prayer.

But the fun, I mean work, had just begun.......

THE END OF THE ROAD

2009-09-16T07:43:00.000-07:00

By now we were fairly worn out. Looking at the east coast for prime farming land seemed like an act of despiration....a lost cause. After all, think of New England having any affordable farm land near the shore....I can't.

But we were determined to give this idea a try, so we went about mapping out the area and setting a target for our next trip down to Virginia to do exploring. We felt almost like Lewis and Clark, except we were going to visit Williamsburg as our vacationing excuse (see a theme here ?).

Luck have it, I was contacted by a real estate agent up here in Massachusetts who was putting together potential clients who might be selling commercial property, and in an off-handed way I thought I'd throw a teaser at him. Does he know of any real estate agents in eastern Virginia, with vineyard experience, that he could put us in contact with ? He didn't flinch and said he'd get back to me. Sure, I wasn't waiting for that call soon, but was I surprized when he called the next day and gave me a name of an agent located right in Williamsburg whom he said could help me.

With some cynicism I called up Mike Lyttle at Prudential and had a short talk with him, only to find out that his professional career started in Napa Valley, and that he had taken part in setting up several vineyards. Was I surprized ! He actually talked the talk, and walked the walk. I immediately called Diane and the 2 of us scheduled a trip south to talk to Mike about our needs and dreams.

We spent over an hour with Mike in his office going over what we theoretically felt were the requirements of our land and vineyard, and Mike constructively put his 2 cents in. He didn't have any parcels for us to look at just then, and I have found this to be normal procedure when we talk to people. No one seems to take us seriously at first. They let us go through the motions some more before they realize we are committed to the project. That was the case here too but what Mike did was map out a driving tour of the area so that when he did locate something that we would have a good idea as to where he was directing our attention. And that's when he sent us into "no man's land". You see, Williamsburg is a solid tourist destination, with its historical significance, Busch Gardens, and home of William & Mary College. Surrounded by old plantations and having a close proximity to Newport News and Virginia Beach, it is a major draw in the area. But Mike gave us a spot to look at that seemed worlds away. Just south of Williamsburg is Jamestown, and south of Jamestown is the James River. And south of that is Surry County, a still rural farming community with sparse housing. The only way to get across the river was via ferry, something Diane and I had never done, except for one trip in Europe. Ferry seemed like a real stretch as to what we wanted to do, or had planned. We didn't exactly jump at the idea, though when we started to do our tour we figured we might as well do it, if for no other reason than it being an adventure and that we could tell Mike we tried it and be able to say thanks but no thanks.

The ferry ride was novel. It almost seemed romantic. All in all it takes about 20 minutes to cross the river......it is fairly wide at this point. The ferry is large enough to hold well over 50 cars, so it took the waves well. The surprizing thing about it is that it is free. That's right.....I'll say it again....FREE !! Up where we live in Massachusetts it would be another way to sock the taxpayer.....easily a $5.00 charge. However, down here in Virginia they seem to have a sensible way of looking at things, and periodically they review the bridge vs. ferry debate and up to now figure the ferry is the best option available. Also Surry does not have alot of business for people to work at, and the trip to Williamsburg shouldn't cost an arm and a leg to just get to and from work. Wild idea, huh ?

Diane and I took the trip, and using a mapbook we zigged and zagged around the county to see what a true farming community looked like. Well, it looks like farming land, and lots of it. Small houses intermingled with the land, sometimes tucked way in the back by the forest line, but usually right on top of the road for easy access (most likely from the builder's point of view). All the roads seemed to meander, and most had names only the locals would remember due to their being named after civil war battles or families who had been there for generations.

One of the things we did find out though was that Virginia Beach was a mere 45 minutes to our east, as was Norfolk / Newport News. Richmond was 45 minutes or so to our west, and in less than an hour there were 3 major airports. Smithfield was just 15 minutes down the road (think Smithfield Hams) and was a small tourist attraction in itself. Taking into account the ferry ride and the fact that it seems you always had to wait to get on it (it runs a minimum of once an hour and more during rush hour, 24 hours a day) figure another 45 minutes to get into Williamsburg.

Little did we know that Mike would find the perfect property right here in Surry....a one horse town (OK, they got their first traffic light in 2008 !), and we would be the proud owners of a vineyard start-up. The fun (I mean work) was almost ready to begin !

2009-08-30T14:36:00.000-07:00

THE SEARCH CONTINUES...IN CHARLOTTESVILLE,VA.

Charlottesville seemed like the next logical place for us to explore. Here was a place with all sorts of magnets.....Montecello, University of Virginia, and at the time it was listed as one of the top 5 places to live in America by a major news magazine. It was prime for the tourist traffic we needed to sell our wine, and had just enough rural atmosphere combined with modernistic fare to make it attractive.

As in the previous episode, we put our faith in a local realtor to help guide us in our selection process. We needed someone to help sift through the numerous real estate listings so that when we raced down there we could get right to the business of fine tuning the searches and visiting the best properties with the highest potential.

She was a petit realtor. All piss and vinegar with a non-stop gift of gab, and 3 cell phones in the car ringing all the time. Her reasoning was that she was all over the counties and some phone services had better reception in some areas than others. With my limited experience with providers I can agree with her assessment, though it was annoying to be carrying on a conversation with her while she fielded what seemed to be a never-ending stream of incomings.

There was no doubt that she was successful. If it wasn't for her horses and her farm, her second love had to be running around looking at real estate (which provided her the funds to support the farm). She even had hired a special assistant to field calls, set up appointments, and put together fact pages so she didn't have any paperwork to do herself. A real machine.

Which provides all the background one needs to understand how the process went on. Though it was done in what appeared to be a pure volume approach, it did lead to a couple of serious offers being made which I'll get to in a moment. She took my criteria, basically ignored most of it, and bombed me with 20 to 30 to 50 listings for me to review for each trip that I had planned to make to the Charlottesville area. I must have visited the area 4 or 5 times. My basic response was to review them, all of them, ask enough questions so that I could trim the list down to maybe a half dozen or so (which I thought the criteria I had provided would do), and then schedule a trip down to Charlottesville for a day or two of running around. Pictures are deceiving, as well as the brief descriptions that are in the MLS listings, and more times than not a quick look while passing in a speeding car was all that was needed to rule out a property. It comes down again to a realtor not taking my time seriously by checking into some of these properties first. It's the "let's jam as many properties down their throats" scenario and maybe one of them will grab if for no other reason than it will wear them down and desiring to get something positive for all the effort spent.

But this was no normal expedition. It is one that'll have to be right for the next 40 years, or for that matter work well with our plans and dreams. It is not a nice place that we will live in "close to work and schools" that'll last us maybe a half dozen years and then we move on.

We saw properties that were fully wooded, where it would take thousands of dollars just to clear. We saw land absolutely destroyed by loggers, with old decaying tree stumps clogging the landscape, costing nearly just as much to clean up before we could start. We saw beautiful pieces of property where a square was carved out of the middle for a small property spin-off by the previous owner. We saw once again those infamous power lines going right through the middle of the property with all their right-of-ways. We saw land hidden so far back in the woods that vines would never see the light of day, excepting maybe from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

But we did see 2 properties that were interesting enough to make bids on, and this is where the repeat trips and bidding process began. Usually I would screen a property, and if I got really excited (Diane has a scale she measures my excitement with to decide if she should get involved herself), the 2 of us would go down to Charlottesville together for a 2nd look, and ultimately an offer to be made. Of course these trips resulted in a minny vacations.....going to see where Jefferson spent his time, or a drive through of the UVA campus. Trips included visiting many of the other wineries where we participated in tastings, or going out to eat at the many restaurants that were in the area.

The first property was down in Nelson County, about 30 minutes just south of Charlottesville. It was a nice piece of land....no buildings, rolling hills with a blend of wooded acreage and cleared land being used to raise cattle. It was out in the middle of no where, and unfortunately many of the rural homes that one had to drive by to get to it were not right up on top of the attractive scale (we were concerned about first impressions of visitors, as well as the ease to get there from the city). At this time we had intentions to build a restaurant, and have a B & B , which as time has moved on we have adjusted our way of thinking.

The realtor managed to schedule a meeting with the owner, who apparently lived near Newport News (hours away) working in the ship building trade. It was a property left to him by his father, one the wife never had any real attachments to, so it was his to price and sell "to the highest bidder". And that is what he thought we were. We gave him what we believed was a fair price. He differed. My interpretation of his side of the negotiation was that (a) the area had been cited as a best place to live, and therefore justified a premium, (b) developers had driven up the price of land based on this best place annoitment, (though none of them were interested in land within 10 to 20 miles) (c) it had some timber on the property and it was priced to reflect the additional income stream that we would get from the land, and (d) we were Yankees so because all Yankees are rich he should get a piece of that pie. Hmmmmm, not a great middle ground for buy-sell negotiations. He was unyielding, and there were just enough things that made us uncomfortable that we moved on. Oh well.

And then there was the 2nd property we really liked. Picture a long driveway with gorgeous trees lining each side of it, from entrance to the circa 1800's home at the end. On each side of the driveway there were cleared fields, currently being used for hay to feed 3 Arabian horses back in the stable (that came with the sale I might add). It was a very nice property with only one big problem.....for some reason the owner wouldn't show us the inside of the house !

We did eventually decide to put a bid on the property, but being refused entrance put a big kabosh on this one. I can't understand what they were thinking, and my normally aggressive realtor couldn't figure it out either, though she stated that they had a set price (regardless ?) that they weren't going to move from primarily because they had no initial plans as to what they were going to do once the house was sold. They had a business in an neighboring town, and they needed a certain amount of cash to make the move, whatever that means to a buyer. It was a beautiful spot, but time wasted.

Diane and I were now frustrated beyond belief. We saw the clock ticking, all these wasted trips leading to no where (though we did taste some very good, and not so very good, wines in western Virginia). Every trip that went by got us further away from starting our dream, not to mention the difficulties in timing our vineyard purchase with the sale of other real estate we owned in Massachusetts. We had a buyer up there who was getting itchy for a Close, but whom I kept putting off until we found the right land to purchase. It was a tense time.

But then Diane came up with a despiration hail-Mary suggestion.......why don't we look in eastern Virginia ? You gotta be kidding......inexpensive farm land closer to the ocean and populated areas ? It made no sense, but as I said, out of complete frustration, what was there to lose....

2009-08-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

THE SEARCH BEGINS (Really).....

Asheville, North Carolina was our first "port of entry" so to speak. Home of The Biltmore, east of the Great Smokey Mountains. It met our geographical restriction being halfway down the eastern region of the United States. We firmly believed that the tourist trade was going to be our main customer base for our new winery, and at the time we also thought about having a small restaurant and an inn tied in with the vineyard and winery.

The Biltmore had a significant draw for this type of customer, and they had their own winery too which proved to us that it was a viable choice for what we wanted to do. And of course there was our own vacation appeal to go down and check it out.

But before we went I tied into a local real estate agent and explained to him what we wanted to do, i.e. develop a vineyard with all its amenities. Within short course I was deluged with all sorts of properties that "met this criteria", maybe 20 or so. It took some time to thump through them, but I was able to narrow it down to three that appeared to have some potential. I felt this was the right way to go about it, that is getting a local realtor who "knew the area", zip down and spend a few hours to give an initial check, and then decide the next move. In theory this is great, in actuality it became an utter disaster.

I asked my realtor to personally look at the properties and provide feedback, and told him that we would dedicate 4 to 6 hours driving around and looking at the properties. When you are judging distance looking at a AAA road atlas, this seemed a fairly reasonable request.

A few weeks later Diane and I were introduced to the mountains. We arrived as planned, checked into the hotel, contacted the realtor and confirmed our morning's appointment at 9, and settled in for what we thought was a well executed plan. I'm not sure what I pictured the realtor to look like when we met, but what I got was someone who looked like Mr. Brady from the Brady bunch.....a tall guy with a full head of curly hair and black horn rimmed glasses. Sorry, it didn't give me alot of confidence to begin the day. We were soon off to check Property #1 of 3 in his small blue sedan with uncomfortable seats and questionable shocks.

We drove off down the road and he started to look at some hand written directions to the land. This was before GPS became the big thing, and obviously the first time he had come this way. In fact, he hadn't visited any of the properties, and the input we had gotten during previous discussions had apparently been the best foot forward via MLS descriptions. Think "beautiful views of the mountains, clear water stream and pond for swimming and boating, perfect building site, ready access to State routes....." and you can see how I was able to narrow the search to 3 gorgeous sites.

Well, we couldn't find the first property right away. The car was hot, we were basically lost without a clue even though we knew the property was on that road somewhere. After an hour of going back, and forth, and back, and forth our realtor finally stopped at a trailer home overlooking the small back road and knocked on the door to see if THEY knew where the property was. He tried calling the listing agent too, and between the two we were able to find the well-hidden entrance down a ways. It was the starting entrance for some developer's plans for several upscale homes, with a fairly large chunk of land (with what appeared to be a concrete block 2-story barn) off in the corner. Yes, it did have a pond which I'm sure from one direction or another might have been picturesque, though not from where we entered from. The biggest boat for the size may have been a canoe or rowboat. Its farm land was overgrown and over-rated, and after the turmoil to get this far, we were ready to move on. The clock had been ticking faster than our progress; we were already half-way through the allotted time we had set aside, and we had 2 properties more to go, with a realtor who really had no clue where they were. Not good for the experience.

I don't even remember the 2nd piece of property, but the third one made a deep imprint on me.

If anyone knows the Asheville area well, they know of Lake Lure. Maybe 10 or 15 miles away from Asheville proper, it is a vacationer's vacation spot with an attractiveness much like Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. With all the water sports available for your entertainment, a place to go and just have fun, nestled in the surrounding mountains, it is just a nice place to escape.

We may not have taken the fastest way to get there, but we sure took the most direct way. A 2-lane road (hey, at least it was paved !) winding down a steep mountain side, first turning left, mandatory braking, then turning right, more braking, meandering our way down to the base of the steep incline until we reached the bottom. From there we drove just a little ways and found what appeared to be a cul-de-sac in the middle of no where. The car drove in, pausing in front of any visible sign, looking for the proper real estate ForSale sign for us to declare some sort of quiet victory. And there it was, a small driveway going into the piece of land for sale, and at the very end of the short driveway was a 2 story white house that was a handyman's dream (assuming he had nothing else better to do !)

The 3 of us got out of the car with some warped sense of enthusiasm, but like all abandoned properties we used a bit of caution as we approached the house. We gave it a circle, saw the screened in porch on the back, and immediately identified it as uninhabitable until it was given a major overhaul. Windows and doors were broken, junk all around; it gave abandonment a new meaning. We continued our tour, and as in all future real estate reviews Diane and I talked out loud on the positive things we felt about the land (Southern facing slopes are a good thing for a vineyard), and held off saying too much negative until we were alone and could vent.

We learned that to have land in the Asheville area required one leg shorter than the other.....it appeared that you were always on the side of a hill or mountain somewhere....no big pastures anywhere. And we were told U.S.40, the main Interstate in and out of there, was closed several times each winter because it iced over and trucks slid off the road not expecting the sheet of ice suddenly appearing on the occassional freezing night. Not a good sign. With this we also felt that if anyone had a little too much wine during a wine tasting, that we had better have great liability insurance, for they were sure to die in a car crash either going or returning from the winery. It was a tense enough trip being tired and sober, let alone a bit tipsy.

But one of the things you learn on these early reviews is what each of us didn't like, and Diane hated high tension power lines ! Not that I loved them, but what we found in future properties was that there seemed to be a large number of properties for sale with electrical power lines and their liens and right of ways going right down the middle of otherwise nice farming land. It's too bad I guess and I wish I had a solution to this eyesore but I don't. Maybe if I wasn't going to invest heavily in vines, posts, trellising, and wire it wouldn't matter. But since I am, it did.

You would think that was the end of this tour, but the finale was about to unfold. As we went back to the house and started towards the car, I looked at the front door of the house and saw that it had a stapled sign on the front door. What could it be ? I assumed a real estate sign, or maybe even a condemned sign after having taken a walk around the house. However, on closer inspection it turned out to be a posting by the DEA saying that there had been arrests there for drug manufacturing, and that they couldn't guarantee that during their sweeps they got all of the contraband out of there. If this wasn't an incentive to run clear, I don't know what is. Asheville was crossed off the list, and from here we were Charlottesville bound......

2009-08-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

SO YOU WANT TO BE A WINEGROWER

I'm beginning this story a few years after its inception so that after you read a dozen or so entries you will be well on your way to understanding the trials and tribulations of taking this (insane) dream of having a vineyard, accompanied by a winery and restaurant, to reality. Hopefully I'll keep it in some form of chronological order, but I suspect that I will regress at times as I remember something seemingly important, or maybe entering specific data to technically support an entry so if you are really serious in following suit you can use the facts instead of dealing with only passing generalities.

I certainly will make at times some brash comments and conclusions, most of which would make a wine scholar's skin crawl, but so be it. You see, even someone who studies everything they need to study to begin a venture like this, and who asks a gazillion questions to all the experts out there , is going to find out that there isn't just one way of doing this. And most likely they are going to have to make a decision, since no one else will, to just get the whole project moving. You can nit-pick to death and never get moving, or just do something and learn from one's findings or mistakes.

IN THE BEGINNING.........

The decision to set up a vineyard and winery (I'm not sure which really came first, but most likely the winery) was way back in 2004. Sure, I tinkered with grapevines in my backyard a good 20 years prior, but I think it took the realization that retirement was in the not too distant future and my wife and I had to come up with a plan .

My wife Diane and I have been married for over 35 years now (that's alot of dog years !) and during this time, after going through numerous job changes and trying to learn what we both enjoyed doing together, we settled on drinking wine as something that made both of us smile just thinking about. We had tried cycling, but knees hurt, then we tried scuba diving, but the thought of all that water above us seemed generally hazardous. We were both qualified to sail 43' vessels, but sailing around the Boston Harbor over and over in a rental became rather boring after awhile.

I took up flying; even went so far as to get my instruments license. But entering another recession with a kid in college put the kabosh on that expensive hobby, not to mention never having a plane available when we needed it.

I took up running marathons, but after a fractured leg mid-way through the Wine Glass Marathon (Corning, N.Y.), building up again to run Boston which I eventually qualified for and ran on one of their hottest marathon days ever, I was pretty much limited from then on to short distances. My legs had been spent. And this kind of exercise didn't appeal to Diane anyway; it is a lonely sport.

All of this eventually led me to doing a financial review. Our kids were both out of college and more or less on their own. We had our house, and my business(think Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate"), and some funds we had invested in. I came up with a number and with this, my mind spun with ideas on what to do for the 2nd half of our lives.

One of the reasons our marriage has lasted so long is that Diane and I have an unwritten rule in our house. It is the power of veto over whimsy ideas. We both have been "granted" this power, but I have to conclude that I seem to have more whimsy ideas, and hence more vetos, than Diane.

I made a proposal. Sell everything, buy a 40' yacht, and sail around the world for the rest of our lives (after up front boat expenses, it only costs around $15,000 per year to maintain this lifestyle), OR purchase land and start a vineyard, with the idea that a few years later we would build a winery and restaurant next to it. Even in hard times we would always have food and wine......what else do you need ??!!

Diane opted for the winery. She believed eating all that seafood would wear thin after awhile, not to mention having only me and maybe a stupid little dog or cat to talk to for weeks at a time might be a tad grueling. And besides, to find the right land to purchase would take some time, and maybe another great idea might replace it. Also, I was never one for vacations so to go on this land hunt gave us an incentive to pack our bags and travel.

2004 -2005 The Land Search

Our inital search for possible vineyard sites was focused on the mid-Atlantic. There were a few reasons for this. One, we didn't really want to be too close to any relatives. Far enough for a visit, not too close for continual path-crossing. This is probably more my idea, since half of Diane's family lived in the mid-West with the balance in New England in various townships. 2/3 of my family lived near Daytona with 1/3 on Cape Cod. Our kids were also spread apart, and were fairly independent, so no one needed hand holding. For this the mid-Atlantic states seemed like a good compromise. Take this with the fact that no one in my family truly enjoyed the snow and ugly winters , and tie it with the thought of an extended growing season as you traveled South, and the decision seemed a natural. Now it was time to zero in on a spot.

Needlesstosay my resident social chairman had thoughts on our first jaunt, to go to Asheville....