Netting The Grapes

 

The grapes are colouring up nice and accumulating the sugars. Nows the time the birds will be looking to get into the grapes.

The Castel and Leon Millot are just turning and we estimate we are 7-10 days behind normal. Grapes are looking good.

Castel

Leon Millot

Evangeline..from the 3 yr old vines.

We put out drape bird netting on most varieties but use side insect netting on the Evangeline as its both birds and wasps that like to snack on these ones.

Last year we also had skunks enjoying the Evangeline so the bottom wires have all been replaced with electric fencing wire and charged to disuade any critters from wanting to get under the vines.

Weve got a nice crop of L'Acadie comming along this year as the first large planting of those vines are starting to mature. We usually pick these just after the Evangeline and about1 weeks earlier than the reds but we are are going to let them hang this year and pick them just before the reds.

Hot and Dry

Each year is different and you see that some years start out very similar to other years gone by but things can change very quickly. This year was cool in May and June resulting in delayed flowering into the 2nd week of July for some varieties. And since then its been 4-5 weeks since weve had any measurable rain and on top of that its been the second hottest July we've recorded with several days in the 40c area.

The heat has been tough on the new vines as they do not have a big enough root structure to draw moisture and keep the leaves hydrated but they are doing ok and showing remarkable resiliancy. We've made several passes to remove weak, late, and 3 and 4th clusters to improve the overall ripeness of the crop we want to keep. Above you can seea 3rd cluster further along the cane that has now been removed.

The vines have caught up some what and despite the lack of rain the mature vines are doing well and the grape development is pretty good. As of the beginning of August we were already seeing some clusters approaching bunch closure (Aug 5 photo) and we are probably 7-10 days away from veraison and that means we'll be netting soon.

Grapes Are Looking Good

 Mid summer and the end of July finds us in a good but bad situation.

The good news is the grapes have pretty much never looked better. Big full clusters, no sign of fungi, very healthy vines and tremendous growth in the heat weve had the past 3 weeks.

On the other hand we were 7-10 days late in flowering and the grape development is about 1 week behind. 

Question is do we have enough heat and long enough season to get the grapes to an acceptable ripeness?

Of course we can predict that outcome but if we have a bit of an extended fall..even for a few days and the heat continues we can make up for some of the early season delay.

Summer - Better Late Than Never

Well following an uninspiring cool spring we entered summer but without the heat. The heat is now here having arrived the second week of July with temps in the +30c area.

Although all the vines are at least 7-10 days late we are now seeing remarkable growth and grape clusters growing very fast. And wow...first time in several years there is no forest fire smoke in mid-July, or nearby forest fires.

Weve been tieing and tucking canes the last few days and canes that were too short to tie are growing fast enough that they were long enough to tie up the next day.

Marechal Foch and Leon Millot look good, in fact everything looks good so far. Foch below.

Oddly we were propegating Evangeline and some Vandal Cliche outdoors and the cool wet weather in spring caused most of the canes, particularly the Vandal Cliche, to rot or push shoots then die...it was that cool and wet.

The growth on the new planting of vines put out last fall and this spring is comming along slowly and the heat should now help to bring the vines into some significant growth.

Slow Crawl into Summer

The weather is really the wild card every season. Some aspects are controllable, including the type of vine you choose to grow - matching it as best as possible to the location, the soil inputs to meet the needs of the vines, pest and competing vegitation control as well. But the rain fall, sunshine and heat vary from year to year.

As is the case this year, its been really cold, perhaps the coldest May we've recorded in 14 years and an average June but quite cool at the start and only at the back end hitting the high 20's and low 30's. We'll be a week behind normal for flowering but with a normal summer and fall the rest of the way we can expect a decent year. 

Who knows perhaps we'll get and extra week or two in the fall before frost settles in. In any event the vines are looking good so far, crop load adjustments are made with shoot and pre-bloom cluster thinning  and its nice to see the L'Acadie and Castel starting to mature with bigger and more clusters on each vines.

Cold Spring

 So you'll notice the choice of words "cold" to describe the weather. Its been cold with May vomming in at about 11c average for the month and everything is delayed. An average May temperature is about 12.7c.

Bud break was about May 23-26 and this puts it at the latest weve ever experienced,  normal is around May 18-21.

With danger of any late frost having passed weve now completed the secondary pruning and we just need some heat now.

We are also moving from treated wooden posts to metal and weve now switched over 25% of the vineyard.

 

Vineyard Expansion Continues

So a few years back we began clearing more land to expand the vineyard. The piece of land next to the vineyard was full on forest land and took a few seasons to both clear the land and prepare for planting.

Clearing the land to use it for farming takes alot of work and again a big thank to to Crescent Bay Construction for the heavy work in clearing the trees. We took dozens of cords of wood off the land and more thanks to Shane Raymond. Here is the land clearing. see link

We burned up the residual (very dirty work) and then cleaned the land of large unburned stumps etc., and again a big thank you to Shane Raymond in helping with that. Burning is dirty work. see link

We been ploughing to prepare the land and the soil here is excellent silty/sand...so much different than in the rocky original test vineyard. Since then we've been planting new vines such as Leon Millot and Marquette, both reds. Also, one of the vines going in this area is Evangeline. This "made in Canada" grape is not available for purchase commercially so we've had to propegate our own. More info on Evangeline.

The last group of Evangeline are being propegated this year and will be planted in the fall of 2022 or spring of 2023. Alot of new vines in the ground from last fall and this spring in this new area and its nice to finally see it filling in.

Pruning and Planting

 May 1st and things are a bit behind this year with the weather. We usually have some small early leaves comming out on the trees last 2 weeks of April but just starting to see that now.

We have finished the 1st round of pruning to get rid of most of last years growth. But we still leave double the bud count just in case there is a late spring frost (remembering last year). Lots of bleeding from the vine as soon as you prune it.

Late May, we'll do a second prune to adjust bud count for proper crop load and do another adjustment to cluster prune in early July.

We also have some Marquette to plant and we will get those in the ground in the next few days.

Spring 2022

Well just like that the snow was all but gone in just a few days and this led to first round of pruning. This next 3 images are March 28, 29 and 30th...you could pretty much see the snow dissapearing.

We had -23.5 c as a low this winter and generally that doesnt hurt our vines too much. Most of the prunings look healthy and green and a few varieties..Foch and L'Acadie were really pushing sap from the pruning ends and some buds were showing scale crack here and there.

Our next round of pruning will be early-mid May, once any danger of frost has passed and we will prune to adjust bud count for a proper crop load.

2021 Departs With Damaging Cold (But Not For Us)

We rarely see cold in the -23c area, in fact up until a few days ago we've only seen these temperatures 2 times in the past 14 years - now its 3 times. On December 27th we got a cold blast that took us to the -23c zone and the entire region was blanketed with the bone chilling cold. That temperature is ok for us, but some other areas in the Okanagan were not spared and endured colder temperatures down to -27c and added wind chill values as low as -38c. For us -23c is not a critical temperature as nearly all our commercial varieties have good cold tolerance to about -27c or colder but still we prefer a bit warmer winter for both the vines and our sake.

For most vinifera varieties like Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Merlot etc., -23c is kind of the make it or break it zone as these varieties don't have much cold tolerance beyond -23c. So this is bad news for some grape growing areas in BC. Kamloops was in a deep freeze for a few days in the -27c zone as was Kelowna showing -27c on both December 27th and December 28th and wind chill values in Kamloops were -38c and Kelowna -34c. That's not good and some bud, if not trunk, damage can be expected but we will hope for the best for those out there as you really never know what this all means until the spring comes.

                               

Lots of winter ahead of us yet and about 1 foot of snow on the ground so far, the big snow usually comes in January-February. We are hoping for milder winter temperatures to take us into spring and if -23c is as cold as we get then we are good.

As we end 2021 we reflect on the challenging year for weather in BC, -24c cold in February, -2c record breaking frost in late May, record breaking +46c heat in early July, forest fire threats in July and August, record breaking rain and destruction in November and now -23c in December....but we also look forward to the new year and the next growing season with excitement.

Hoping for a better year in 2022 and wishing everyone a healthy, happy and prosperous new year!