Grape Update

July has been fairly close to normal in temperature. Days have been averaging 28c for highs but nights have been a bit cool averaging about 8c, which is about 2 degrees below normal. We're on track for an 18c average and if the nights were averaging 10 degrees (normal) we'd have a 19 monthly average. There has been plenty of moisture up until early July but little rain since. Having said that there is still good moisture in the soil at about 4-6 inches below the surface and beyond. The cool nights also dramatically increase the humidity (logger shows in the 80%-90% level) and this moisture in the air and that which collects on the vines is obviously helpful to the plants. I think it helps them rehydrate after the hot dry day and lowers how much water the vines lose at night to the air (transpiration).

The Ravat is doing well and clusters set fruit well. All the vines are at the 5 foot fruit wire and many shoots are several feet beyond that. These long shoots will be the cordon for next year. Here is a picture of the Ravat grapes and vines;

The Leon Millot looks ok, some vines are very vigorous and others not about 50/50. I did some vine pruning to limit shoots to the main one and eliminate laterals to force growth into the primary shoot.

The Agria are comming along they are slow but look healthy. Having said that there is some bug that just loves to munch on the primary shoot and in doing so it stops the upward growth and the vine sends out multiple laterals - think its a caterpillar or grasshopper. Many of the vines look like little shrubs instead. Have done some pruning on this again to try to correct this and bring the primary shoot around so it will grow up to the fruit wire.

The ortega again are lacking vigor. The blattners look ok, with Petite Millot and Cabernet Foch doing well. The Cabernet Libra less vigorous and one plant died over winter.

The Pinot Noir (115) did remarkably well. They were really planted in the worst of conditions and I would have been surprised if a few of the 10 plants survived. Having said that there are 7 of the original 10 vines that are growing. Slow growth, but growing

The Regent did the worst of all only 5 of the 14 vines survived winter and the growth this year is slow. Will try to get some long canes and layer in the spots where the vines died off.

Interesting Vine - Honey Suckle?

Was wandering through the forest on the property and found this beautiful vine and flowers growing up a tree. Not grapes but interesting to see it growing in the midst of a dark forest with thick canopy overhead. I think it is a wild honey suckle.

It is heplful to find this plant and match it to a plant hardiness zone as this provides insight into the long term climate of the area. I had estimated the plant hardiness zone at the vineyard site as 5A to 5B based on the Plant Hardiness Zones of Canada Map. I found a reference to this Honeysuckle vine that grows in the interior of British Columbia in plant hardiness zone 5. Also the plant hardiness zone map noted above list some plant species common to different zones. In 5A Oregon Grape (holly) is common and we find alot of it at our site as well. So we are likely in zone 5A to 5B and these zones can experience winter lows between -29c and -23c. This knowledge is important for choosing what varieties of grape to grow. So far we've experience winter lows of -19c (2007/2008), -25c (2008/2009), and -20c (2009/2010).

Grapes are Late

We are cold at the experimental vineyard so far this year, and cold means late. The cold also had a terrible impact on the developing buds in late May. In an earlier blog I wrote about the -2 to -3 temperature we had in late May. Well that pretty much killed off the emerging buds and now only a few primary buids made it the rest are secondary buds on both the Ravat 34 and the Leon Millot. Good news is that some of the secondary buds produced clusters. You can see in the picture of Ravat 34 below, the dark reminant of the primary bud and the shoot from the secondary bud with a small cluster on it.

Here is a picture of one of a few shoots where the primary bud made it. Two clusters, Nice flowers.

The earliest Ravat clusters are just flowering so this is about 10 days late. Given a 90 day maturity for these grapes, at best, harvest would be about September 31st/October 1st.

The growth on the Ravat and Leon Millot is good (Ravat more even than the LM) and a few of the vines have already reached the 5 foot fruit wire.

As for the other varieties in the trial, the Agria is doing well with 17 of 18 plants comming back. The 5 ortega vines are growing but again very poor vigour. The Petite Millot looks very good, strong and healthy on all six plants, even budding out from last years cane, pretty much the same for the Cabernet Foch but not as vigorous. The Cabernet Libre had only 4 of 6 plants survive. The Regent had only 5 of 14 plants survive and 5 of 10 of the Pinot Noir survived. Now this is what is visible as of July 1st/2nd and some of the vines showed emerging shoots that were only a week or so old so it is possible that the others that appear lifeless may yet be alive and send up a shoot or two.

Cold May

Well this was quite possibly the warmest winter on record for this region and a wonderful warm April (average 8.0 and a low of -5.6). December was the coldest month with a average of -6.5 and a low of -20. Our January was warm with an average of -0.5 with the coldest recorded temp of -9. February average was 1.9 with a low of -6. March average was 3.7 also with a low of -6. May on the other hand has been cold and there has been little growth since the end of April. If the warm weather of April had continued on into May we would have had bud break around May 5-7th but the cold came and it was delayed until approximately May 16-18th at the end of a week of really nice if not hot weather. Between May 12 and may 15th we had day time highs between 27 c and 31 c. The buds pushed and were leafing out but then between May 21 and May 24 we had night time lows of -1.4 to -2. The frost that came with the cold damaged some of the emerging shoots but not too severely.

This is the coldest May in the three years I've been recording. 2008 May average was 13.45, 2009 May was 12.0 and for 2010 it is 11.4. But the day time highs have been normal averaging around 21, it is just that the lows have been way below normal. However, the cold has not been just our site. In fact the entire region has been under this cold spell. Here are some local weather stations with their normal May average and the 2010 May average.

Station_______Normal____2010
Penticton_____13.6_______11.9
Kelowna______12.6_______11.0
Salmon Arm___13.0_______11.9

Were hoping for a quick turn around in this weather but the two week advanced forecast puts the temperatures at average if not just below average to June 14th. At this rate we wont have flowering until the end of June.

As for the vines budding out. The Ravat 34 is doing excellent. Probably about 90-95% bud survival rate and as of May 24th some of the buds were opening enough to show the flower clusters. So the buds appear to be fruitful. The next warm spell should bring them out so we can get a good look. On the other hand the Leon Millot did quite poorly this winter. These vines are in the row next to the Ravat with same soil structure and temperature profile that the Ravat is subject too. However, as of the end of last season the growth of the Ravat was more uniform and where as there were some Leon Millot vine that showed very vigorous growth will other were moderate. All the Leon Millot vines have live buds, some more than others.

In checking the buds to see which were live many were brown and dead but the cane was green and healthy. The winter lows were only -20 this past year so I don't believe the winter cold caused much damage however, the cold snap of October 6th, 2009 may have done some damage. These vines were just at the stage of shutting down and we would have harvested the grapes at the end of September. The cold snap in October was -9 and I think this weakened or killed many of the buds. Any that were weakened may have further died off with the winter low of -20 in December. As such we had about a 40% survival rate.

I recently read that Road 13 vineyard experienced some bud damage as a result of the October cold snap (see the January 29, 2010 posting) and there were similar reports from vineyards just south of the border (see link). What is also interesting is that my Joffre (sister vine to Leon Millot and from the same hybrid cross) also suffered great bud damage as a result of a cold snap of -12 we experienced in Edmonton in October 2009. None of the Joffre cuttings I took budded out.

We'll train the new Leon Millot canes up to the 5 foot high fruit wire and see what happens next year.

The five Ortega vines also are sending out shoots but they are very low in vigor and perhaps do not like the soil or site. I've heard they take a bit longer to establish but by the end of this year (3) we should have some decent growth so we'll watch how this one makes out this year.

As for the Blattners, Agria, Regent, and Pinot Noir, they are all coming into their second year. Most of them have poor bud survival from last years canes but there are new shoots coming from the base of the vines. This is not unusual for first year vines to send out new shoots from the base. As such the Petite Milo looks good lots of shoots emerging. The Cabernet Foch is tentative with a few of the plants showing growth and the Cabernet Libre has no visible shoots as yet. The Regent is slow and only a few plants are showing emerging buds or shoots. The Agria is doing the best of all for these and about half of the plants are sending up new shoots. What is particularly interesting is that they have come through the frost events better than most. As for the Pinot Noir there is no shoots as yet and I believe that many of the plants may not have made the winter -we will see.

Castel 19637 Grape

Many people have not heard of this grape but it has been cultivated as a red French-American hybrid for decades. Castel 19637 or Castel which is it's common name, is a cross between Cinsaut x V. rupestris.

Cinsaut itself is a high producer and can make an excellent wine (good blog details at this link - fun wine blog). In South Africa Cinsaut is also known as Hermitage and it was crossed with Pinot Noir to make Pinotage (Pinot Noir + Hermitage = Pinotage) Hence the name.

The Castel vine is also highly productive and has been reported up top 6 tons per acre. It is recommended for the shorter season areas of British Columbia and rated well in a variety trial held on Vancouver Island in the late 1980's (link - see The Duncan Project). Over the 5 years that grapes were harvested in this study the average Brix was 24, PH was 3.12, and the TA was 1.27. The five year average degree days accumulation was 900 from April to October. These are great numbers for such low degree day accumulations and are similar to the numbers that have been observed from this variety in trials in Minnisota which recorded Brix 23.9°, 3.05 pH, and 10.3 g/l of acidity. The comments on the wine from the Duncan Project were "red, intense colour, full body, attractive, earthy flavour, hybrid character, acidity." It is also widely grown in Denmark.

It has excellent cold hardiness to -30 c and disease resistance against Powdery Mildew and Downy Mildew. It ripens in the same period as Leon Millot about 85-90 days from flowering to harvest. This variety is said to be excellent for the back yard grower as well as the commercial vineyard and is quite easy to manage. It can be trained to several styles including VSP or hanging curtain.

This variety is made into sevaral different syles including rose, fruity red and a complex big wine. The Castel I've tasted from Domaine de Grande Pre and Gaspereau Vineyards in Nova Scotia were both excellent and are very similar to Pinotage I've had from the Soljans Estate, New Zealand. Zanatta Winery and Cherry Point Vineyard on Vancouver Island both harvest this grape. Zanatta uniquely blends it with Cabernet Sauvignon to make champagne they call "Taglio Rosso" (Brut) and Cherry Point makes a varietal from Castel that they call "Forte". Here is a link to someone who has tasted the Cherry Point Castel

Here are some more links to information about this variety.
Castel link
Castel link

Clearing the Land - Frost Pocket

We had the land cleared around th existing vineyard spot in late April and to our surprise we found that the vineyard test spot is actually located in a small low area. So actually clearing the trees here will have a negative effect as it will allow all the cool air from the area recently cleared to pool at night in the vineyard. April was preety warm and the last week or so the vines were about a week from bud break if the weather were to stay the same.

As it happens, the spring and specifically the month of May has been the coolest of those recorded. Significantly so that the the vines as of May 25th were just slightly into bud break and we have had some tremendous variations in temperatures. Mid may we hit 31 degrees high and on the night of May 23th we had a low of -2 with obvious frost that cuased damage.

What is particularly interesting is that I took separate reading from separate data loggers on the 23rd, 24th , and 25th of May to capture the night time lows at the 6" height level and at the 4'6" height level. Here is the night time lows recorded for a few of the dates at the different heights.

Height___ 6"___ 4'6"
May 23 ___-3____ -2
May 24 ___0_____ 2.4
May 25 ___0_____ 2.6

The higher elevation the warmer it is and one or two degrees can make a huge difference. Many vines in the early bud break stage can withstand a -2 low but not a -3 low. This is why a higher fruit wire cordon can bennefit the vines in a area that is prone to frosts.

Treatment of Cuttings Propagation Results

Last fall I took cuttings from my Acadie Blanc and Marechal Joffre in preparation for propagation this spring. Now as these plants originated from cuttings that came from Nova Scotia, the CFIA wanted me to treat these cuttings to ensure that there is no pest on them when I move them to BC.
I took the cuttings in late fall and they appeared good. However, when I took them out of cold storage they were very dry. I probably did not wrap them in enough damp paper towel an they dried out a bit over the 3 months they were in storage.
In early March two CFIA agents came to my house and watched as I put the cuttings through a hot water treatment. Basically the cuttings are immersed in a hot water bath for 5 minutes at about 43 Celsius then they are transferred and immersed in a second bath for 5 minutes at 52 Celsius.
After the treatment I let them sit in water for 24 hours to rehydrate some them planted them in 50/50 peat moss-pearlite mixture. They sat in a climate controlled room at about 10 degree celcius air temperature and on top of a warming mat that kept the root zone at about 26 Celsius.
After 6 weeks none of the Joffre cuttings showed any signs of life and two of the Acadie cuttings did bud out however, they both died a few weeks later.
Now that the vines that the cuttings came from are budding out I see where some of the problem came from. There are only a few Joffre buds on the original plants coming out and they are secondary buds. The Acadie has a few buds on the mother vine coming out but most are dead.
I think that the canes were damaged with the quick hard cold snap that occurred in early October. The temperature dropped over a few days from the mid 20's to minus 12. Also, with the Joffre this vine has a tendency to continue to grow vigorously late into the fall when it should be going dormant.
The result is that the cuttings that were treated did not produce any plants. I don't think the propagation results were negatively impacted by the hot water treatment of the cuttings. I think the cuttings were damaged when I took them in the fall and further deteriorated as i did not keep them moist enough.
Oh well, I will probably try this again this fall.

Regent Grape

Quite possibly you may never have heard of this grape before. I found out about it a few years back while researching disease resistant early red grape varieties. This one was developed a few decades back in Germany by crossing a vinifera variety Dianna, with a hybrid Chambourcin. The result was a red grape that showed tremendous disease resistance and ripens in about 95 days (bloom to harvest). It has been recommended for those short season vineyards where disease resistance is a priority. I have been in touch with the owner of Hollywood Hills vineyard on the west coast and he has been growing Regent for 10 years. He says he has never had to spray this variety and like other accounts, it ripens in about 95 days. (Link to his blog - it is excellent and worth a look). Given the humidity of the area that seems pretty impressive. The grape trials at Mt. Vernon in Washington have also tested this grape and found it can ripen in about 1700-1800 degree days F and ripens about a 7-10 days after Castel 19637 (another excellent disease resistant, cold hardy, early, hybrid)

I haven't found much details about its cold hardy properties but have read a few notations here and there on the net from people who grow Regent (another good blog) and have said it is hardy to about -13 to -14 F. That is about -25 c. Another document says Regent is hardy to about -5 to -10 F, that is about -20 to -23 C. Peter Salonius who grows this variety in New Brunswick recommends covering this vine if you expect winter cold below - 20 c. (He also lists it as being mid-season for his locatiopn which gets about 900 ddg C or 1650 ddg F on average). So perhaps using this more conservative number -20 C or -5 F could be used as the bench mark. We had about -20 c as the coldest day this past winter at our site so we'll be able to test that on the taller canes that were sticking out above the snow.

What I have also found out is that it apparently makes excellent wine. There are several accounts of this and the fact that the German acreage of this variety has grown from about 400ha in 2000, to just over 2100ha in 2007 is proof that this grape has excellent qualities beyond the disease resistance. It apparently has the ability to reach good sugar accumulations and excellent chemistry for making wine. One German study over a five year found it was superior to Pinot Noir in this respect. Germany's wine authorities have even labeled this grape as being vinifera due to the excellent qualities of the Regent grape and the fact that it has so little non-vinifera genes in its ancestry.

While I have not yet tasted a Regent varietal wine, Hollywood Hills as mentioned above is making it as such. What I have read is that is can make a heavier red wine with complexity and taste similar to a Merlot. I've also heard that is can make an excellent rose as well.
Other sources label it as an excellent wine.

Our Regent is coming into its second year so no crop this year but we will keep a few bunches on the row to give us an idea of ripening times and to see what the juice chemistry is.

What to Plant, Hybrid, Vinifera or both?

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. They were asking me some questions about the vines we were planting at the vineyard. I explained that we had a mix of hybrids and vinifera. I went on to explain that hybrids came about as a result of breeding grape vines for pest and disease resistance and cultural superiority (drought resistance, later bud break, earlier ripening etc. etc.). We talked about grafting of Vinifera to root stock of other grape vines to make the resultant plant better suited to a particular climate, growing area or conditions or disease/pest resistant. My friend asked if these grafted vines were then classified a hybrids. Good question?

I had never thought of it like that before but it is an interesting perspective.

This was a diversion as our discussion was not so much about the differences between hybrids and Vinifera but why the choice of vines we have in our vineyard. There are so many variables that come together that determine what grape varieties are best suited to one location or another. Temperature, sunlight, moisture, frost free days, soil, humidity, pests all play a role in determining what grapes will grow best at a particular site.

We know that we are at the low end of the heat and frost free days spectrum for growing grapes in BC and this means planting the varieties that are the earliest maturing varieties. We are not sure what the winter low temperatures are so this means having vines that are of various levels of cold hardiness.

I think that all the varieties we have decided to plant will work out alright in one way or another. Most are recolgnized varieites (link to VQA varieites) and it appears thusfar that they should all do well in some years if not all. Now there are about the same number of Hybrid grape varieties as Vinifera varieties on the list of acceptable varieties for VQA designation. So while there are alot of options of what to plant, what is important is which varieties will do best at the site. While the Pinot Noir or Zweigelt may do well on an annual basis they may not ripen to as good of sugar/acid levels that you may find at other warmer, longer season sites. Some years may be quite good while others quite poor. In reality you can expect each year is going to be different than the last with some vintages better than others - but this is with varieties that are properly suited to your site.

There is a grower in the south Okanagan that I was talking to who said that he had to over-crop his Seigerrebe to ensure that it didn't ripen too early. He often has to blend it with Pinot Gris to bring the acid up. Even at the right site Seigerrebe is noted for dropping it's acid very quickly and having a high ph at harvest (this is not always desireable in a Germanic style white wine which Seigerrebe is usually made). If the site is too warm and this grape ripens too early this could lower the quality of these grapes at harvest. He said, if you over crop your vines it takes them longer to ripen, but then you can stretch out harvest to when the temperatures are cooler and this can help retain some of the acid and maintain a lower ph. However, there is much literature that suggests that over-cropping results in a loss in quality and can harm the winter survival of the vine or buds.

So even if you have a site with a lot of heat, you have to match the variety to the site. While there are few grapes that would ripen too early at our site, I expect that if we choose varieties that are marginal ripeners for our site then we can expect more poorer vintages than good vintages over time. We are also drawn to disease resistant varieties and that generally puts us in the camp of hybrids.

While there are certain varieities we'd like to grow, and certain varieties in greater demand (which is a very strong consideration for comercial ventures), in order to grow good quality grapes the choice of what to grow will be decided equally by us to meet our needs and by climate, soil and variety being matched correctly. This will present itself over time.

Increasing Degree Day Accumulations

In the past two years we have recorded approximately 900 and 1000 degree days between May 1st and September 30th. There are actually a few more degree days each year, somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-50 but these fall in the months of April and September and are pretty much outside of the growing season. Those that accumulate after the first good fall frost are really of no importance because the growing season is done after that anyway. However, those accumulated in April can have some impact on the season. Lots of heat in April even 15-20 degree days impact the season in terms of early or late bud break.

Presently our site is completely surrounded by forest. The area that has been cleared is approximately 75 x 105 feet (approx. 0.17 acre) and inside that the vineyard is fenced off at 55 x 100 feet . As mentioned in previous blogs I believe there is somewhat more heat in the centre of the vineyard than in the areas along the forest margins where the temperature data logger is placed. Moving the logger to the centre of the vineyard will give a more accurate picture of the degree day accumulations.

While the site is pretty as it is enclosed by trees, this promotes several detrimental effect on climate of the site including; lowering the potential heat accumulation, increasing the potential for frost due to the cold air dam created by the forest and in turn a slower rise in the soil temperature in the spring.

There is a body of research on these topics, many conducted in British Columbia forest regions. The research has been focused on the local changes in climate in forest vs. clear cut area. The clearings ranged in size from 0.03ha 0.13ha to 1.0ha (approx 0.07 acre to 2.25 acres). The research has revealed that the clear cut area had significantly higher degree day accumulations than the forested areas. This was also related to the clearing size - the larger the clearing the more heat (significantly more heat). They found that over a 5 year period the tree seedlings in the largest opening had the greatest growth. They also found that the winter snow melted up to 5 days sooner on the clear cut areas than forests and quickest in the largest clearings. Some studies also found the soil temperature increased earlier in the spring in the clearings (fastest in the largest clearings) resulting in earlier plant biological activity. While the clearings allowed for more heat to escape the soil at night, there incidence of frost did not change as the slope allowed the cold air to drain away. Other similar research has shown that on flat ground without a slope the clearing can be subject to more frost events. Here is some of the studies;
http://www.forrex.org/publications/FORREXSeries/ss1/paper16.pdf
http://treephys.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/26/1/105.pdf
Improving Air Drainage
Clear cut opening size increases heat units

We've known about this research and what it could mean to our site but before we cleared any more land at our site we wanted to be sure the ground could sustain the plants. This is now evident and we plan to increase the size of the clearing this year to nearly 1 acre. This will take advantage of the slope of the land and the subsequent cold air drainage. It is also hoped that expanding the size of the clearing will increase the degree days accumulation of heat. More importantly the clearing will take advantage of the slope of the land and eliminate the cold air dam that currently exists at the vineyard.

Reducing the night time low temperatures caused by the forest damming up the cold air can change the degree days significantly over the growing season. Raising the night time low as little as 1.0 degree on average at our site would add about 75 more degree days over the period of May to September. This may also help mitigate potential frost damage in spring and fall. Together, the increase in day time heat and raising the night time low air temperatures over the growing season should help the overall degree day accumulations.