Harvest 2025 Complete

Was a good year with good production and quality! Had an awesome harvest crew that included Gary from Winnipeg, Jim from Calgary, as well as our neighbor Frank, and Courtney, Ryan, Brendan and Ginger. Thank you!!

One of the things that made this season so great was that we had a high heat (+37c) event in late August and early September, and while our varieties are pretty resistant to the molds out there, they are more prone in the cooler days of fall and as the sugars start to accumulate at that time of year. The high heat though can put slow down or even kill the molds so it was welcomed and it really didnt get a chance to set in.

We also recorded the hottest September in 17 years, at an average temperature of 18c. Our normals are around 14c. All in, we recorded about 1160 GDD of heat and over 160 Frost Free days this year so the second warmest summer we've recorded. Here are a few photos.

Marechal Foch

Sovereign Ruby

Leon Millot

Leon Millot

Castel

Here are the final Brix numbers as of October 3rd;

Marechal Foch - 21 (PH 3.2)

Castel - 24 (PH 3.1)

Marquette - 25 (PH 3.1)

Leon Millot - 23 (PH 3.3)

L'Acadie Blanc - 22 (PH 3.0)

Evangeline - 20 (Harvest August 20)

Pinot Noir - 19

GR7 - 23

Gamaret - 21

Petite Milo - 23

St. Croix - 21

Vandal Cliche - 22

Colmar Precose Noir - 23

Lucy Kuhlman - 22

Triompe D'Alsace - 21

Marechal Joffre - 22

Sovereign Ruby - 22

Ravat 34 - 19

Zweigelt - 21

Seigerrebe - 21

Harvest Begins

 So we took the Evangeline on Aug 19th at 20brix and 3.2ph.. pretty much perfect! 

Amazingly hot Srptember comming in at about 19 avg to Sept 20th..and we are in track for this being the second hottest summer recorded for our location. Testing some of the other varieties we have the following brix;

Marechal Foch 20

Leon Millot 21

L'Acadie 21

Marquette 23

Castel 23

Marechal Joffre 23

Lucy Kuhlman 22

Triompe D'Alsace 20

Sovereign Ruby 19

St. Croix 17

Ravat 34 17

Vandal Cliche 20

We have a few more weeks to harvest and can see adding another 1-1.5 brix to these numbers by harvest.

Veraison - Aug 10th

August 10th - we are seeing colour change on all the red varieties. The Marquette and Castel are showing the most colour and more so in block 10 (the south lot) than block 11. The next is Leon Millot followed by Marechal Foch. We are about 1 week ahead this year, which is always nice. Generally we see the colour change as early as the first few days into August to as late as the 26st of August, but in an average year we'd see the colour change around August 16-17th.  See photos below.

Marquette

Castel

Leon Millot

Marechal Foch

The L'Acadie and Evangeline are coming along as well and the Evangeline is in line for a mid-September harvest. Evangeline below

Unfortunately we are dealing with some fungal pressure this year. It happens time to time, even with these resistant varieties but with the high humidity and damp weather we have had its been a good year for fungal growth. One thing we rely on is a few days of very high heat and sun as that has a killing effect on powdery mildew in particular. A few days in the 37c or higher range knocks the fungus back and can even kill it. We haven't had many days like that either this year, just a few, so that impacts as well. 

Bit of a double edged sword with that high heat as the grapes are often prone to sun burn when it gets that high of temperature and some of the grapes on the clusters exposed to direct sunlight with that high heat will often shrivel and die...but thats the trade off because that same high heat will also kill off the mildew spores and growth. For me I'd rather loose a bit of the grapes to sunburn than to mildew.

We've netted the vines now and will start testing the sugar numbers at the beginning of September to gauge when harvest may be.

Fruit Set and Shoot Thinning

Full flowering was pretty much the last week of June, around the 20-27th. So flowering was pretty much on time if not a few days early.

The Marquette, Leon Millot in the south lot were the first to start and really started the 2nd last week of June achieving decent fruit set. However there was lots of rain in June and at the exact same time (June 20-27) it was cool and rainy with a stretch of days in the 15c-18c range and you can see that impacted the l'Acadie with poorer fruit set. Castel, Leon Millot, Marechal Foch and Evangeline were not really impacted by rain or cool weather, but L'Acadie is more suseptable to poor weather at flowering.

Generally its the Castel and Marquette that are flowering first, then Leon Millot, the L'Acadie and Foch are next and lastly the Evangeline. All are doing well and we are seeing good development.

At this time and once we can see fruit set has occured we do some crop thinning to adjust to proper crop load. This is to ensure proper developent and to ensure the grapes will ripen (If the weather holds to that of a normal year). This means thinning shoots ...often referred to as green pruning.

Thinning the shoots/green pruning is a function of pruning to proper shoot count that aligns with the desired crop load. For Marechal Foch we target about 5 shoots per linear foot of trellis so as we go through the rows we cut away any extra shoots beyond 5 shoots per foot. 

Any shoots beyond the target amount have to go but the first shoots selected to be pruned are the shoots that have no flower clusters or those with under developed clusters. Example below from July 10 of a cane that showing grape cluster (left) that is less developed than a normal one (right). The less developed one has been pruned away.

Pruned shoots laying between the rows

Grapes are Flowering Soon

Well..simply amazing the change that can happen in 3 weeks...going from being a bit late in the bud break to about a week+ ahead in flowering and all the local flowers (lillies and honey suckle shown) are out in full bloom - just beautiful!

Late May and Early June saw some high temperatures and new revords close by. That brought on the growth very fast and we are seeing first evidence of flowering on the Leon Millot and Triompe D'Alsace.

Most canes are at the 5-7 leaf stage. The 4 year old plantings at the far end of the rows are nearly as big as the old plantings in the fore ground.  Yet still lots snow on Mista Peak and Sangrida Peak.

Evangeline is looking good this year. The transition from spur-long spur to long cane pruning and lower bud count seems to working and we are seeing increased flowers.

The baby L'Acadie and Frontenac Blanc are comming along good too but need lots of wayer as they really dont have a big enough root system to support the growth yet.

Hoping for good to average heat for the rest of the flowering season and summer with a few good rains along the way... too much to ask?

Spring 2025 - Cooler Side of Normal

 So we are in the later half of May and so far we've seen realatively normal temperatures ..perhaps a bit lower than normal , but not far off.

The thing about normal is that its an average temperature across several years. May normal is about 12.7 c for the vineyard and takes in the high and low temperature of each day of the month.

This year we are at about 12.5c average so its close to normal and the growth of the vines reflect the tempetature and bud break is a bit slower in alignment with that.

We have some vines located on slopes or rocky ridges where the ground heats up faster showing more advanced bud break but over all bud break is on the later side of normal.

Here is an Evangeline bud showing flower cluster just poking out and ahead of most.

Here is a Leon Millot row with few buds that have really pushed out and more in line with what we are seeing so far in the vineyard. You can see Sangrida peak in the distance with so much snow on it still... thats a reflection of the cool spring we have had.

Next week is showing some high heat near 30c and that will bring in the growth.

New Babies ARRIVE !!

 We are please to announce the arrival of our new baby vines. They were supplied by Upper Canada Growers.

Let me introduce you to Frontenac Blanc.

This is a relatively new variety with cold hardiness and some fungal resistance. 

It is an earlier ripening relative of Frotenac Gris but it has more pronounced tropical fruit.

We added just under an acre of the new vines..mostly Frontenac Blanc and a bit of L'acadie Blanc as well. 

Few years before we see the "fruits" of our labours on these guys (sorry, couldnt resist) but excited about this new addition to the vineyard family.

Pruning Continues

So we finished pruning a few weeks ago.. well kind of. Reality is we prune 2x each year and we finished the first 1. The second pruning will be at the end of May and its really a crop load adjustment.

The first pruning is to take off the bulk of last years growth and leave spurs interspaced along the vine. This is Marechal Foch...the row on the left has been pruned and the row on the right still has all of last years growth. We target an ideal bud count of 5-6 buds per linear foot of trellis but because of the chance of a late spring frost we leave double the bud count on the first pruning,  so about 10 buds per linear foot at this time.

Leaving the extra buds does two things. The first is that it slightly slows the emergence of the buds in the spring. This alone, the delayed bud emergence, can help if there was a late spring frost in that buds that are not fully emerged can withstand colder temperatures. Secondly, if there is a late frost that damages the emerging buds, it usually  wont damage them all. So extra buds means a greater chance of having a normal sized  crop.

At the fist pruning we usually leave 4 bud spurs and then when we complete the second pruning we will cut that back to 2 buds. So when its all said and done we will have about 3 x 2 bud spurs per linear foot of trellis. (Image below shows the 4 bud spur)

After the second pruning and later in the summer we will remove shoots that might not have any fruit on them as well as any secondary shoots that have emerged. This could be considered a third pruning but we chalk it up to canopy and crop load adjustments. Ideally for our conditions we would have a final shoot count of 5 shoots per linear foot.

We are seeing great survival rates of buds and so far so good. Few more hurdles to go...no late frost...warm weather in June and through flowering...good fruitset..and if we get to there with little issues we just need a good dump of rain by early August and then hoping for a warm September easing into an early October harvest.

Not asking for much is it?

Pruning Time

 So a few weeks back we started our pruning. Its a time when you get the first sense of how the vines have made out through the winter.

You start cutting off last years growth and leave enough growth for this years canes to sprout from. We generally leave 50%-100% extra buds in our first go at the pruning as there is always a chance of a late spring frost that could destroy the crop.

Leaving this many extra buds does 2 things. First the extra buds slows the emergence of the new growth as the vine has to support double the crop load. Second...if there is a frost there are that many more buds on the vine that then increases the chance of a decent secondary crop. Risk management in the vineyard.

Cutting away last years growth and observing the canes shows you how healthy they are. Green tissue that extends nearly the full length of the cane is a really good sign.

Generally as the canes start to go dormant for the winter they are hardiest near the trunk and least hardy towards the tips. So its not uncommon for a good portion of the cane to die. This year with the mild winter that only went as low as -18c, there is very little die back.

Good news as we are taking cane prunings to propegate into new vines. We will be starting some L'Acadie, Vandal Cliche, GR7, Foch and Marquette.