Bud Break 2019

Absolutely love this time of year. Snow capped peaks surround the vineyard, morning mist comes down off the mountains and flows through the vines, and you get the first good look at what this years crop may be. For somethings like crop load  adjustments or soil inputs, it can take two or more seasons before you can see the effects. So in that respect, you get to see if what you did a few seasons back, worked they way you wanted it too.

Bud break was at the usual time this year dispite the cool weather right up into the second week of May. In fact some local areas got a touch of frost in the first week of May. But its been normal temperatures since then and its astonishing how quick the vines grow once the soil has warmed up. In just 1-2 week the vine can move from wooly tips to full leaf.

So we just finished the first round of shoot adjustments (removing extra shoots) to ensure we have a proper crop load. We will go at it again in in July once the vines have flowered and we have fruit set and we can further guage crop load.

As of May 24, the Marechal Foch is off to a great start and some canes are at the 5th leaf, most are around 3-4 leaves. The Ravat is similar with some at 4th leaf and most in the 2-3 leaf stage. Triompe D'Alsace and Evangeline are just getting going and are at 1-2 leaves - they are always the katest. Foch rows below;

With the heat forcast in the next few weeks those later varieties will be catching up quick and we can expect mid June flowering. 

Sustainable Vineyard - School Presentation

We are often asked to make presentations to groups about vineyard practices and among these groups are schools.

We were asked to present to a Grade 7 class this year as part of the Grade 7 science program includes sustainable agriculture practices and our presentation fits nicely.

Some of our key vineyard practices that we discuss is;
-non use of fungicides
-non use of pesticides
-non use of herbicides
-natural pactices to reduce harmful insects
-vineyard practices to maximize natural rain fall
-use of drip irrigation
-automated and solar power water distribution
-gravity powered water sources
-solarization for weed control
-naturally fungal resistant grape varieties
-natural soil ammendments as fertilizer
-the impact, good and bad, of these practices

We also discuss the growing cycle and propegation of grape vines from vine cuttings. This is a hands on part as each student helps prepare a vine cutting that they grow in the class room and can take home at the end of the semester. They are able to see the vine develop through bud break to shoot growth to root development.

We just checked on the vine cuttings at the school the other day and notice that after 3 weeks many of the cuttings are showing root growth at the bottom of the cup and there is good shoot growth on top - they are rooted vines now

The students will be able to take a vine home in about a month.

What really impresses me is the knowledge the students have obtained already on these subjects, thier enthusiam and great questions. I credit the school and teachers for inspiring their classes and creating such a great learning environment.

New Addition - Baco Noir

We have tested 30 varieties of grapes at Arrow Lake Vineyard and we had always wsnted to see how Baco Noir would work out but never obtained any plants. We lucked out this year and gratefully obtained some from the Arrow Lakes Grape Growers.

Baco Noir is a popular hybrid grown in significant quantities in Ontario and is known to make a big red wine, often oaked. It is know for higher acid at harvest  and is often subject to malolactic fermentation to reduce acid.

Its late in the game for trying new varieties at the vineyard but we will give this one a try and see how it works out at our location.

Vine Buds are Pushing

Its been another cool spring this year, not unlike last year, but again unusual compared to what we are use to. We finally have got some warmer weather moving in and its got the vines pusshing the buds. The Foch and Castel are out in front and the Evangeline is the latest. Foch pictured below;

Nearly 100% bud survival on the Marechal Foch and most varieties show great bud survuval rates. Even the Pinot Noir is exceptional and 80-90% bud survival. Our coldest temperature this past wineter was March 6, 2019 at -21c which is generally pretty cold for us but in particular it was very late in the winter for this cold of temperatures.

Its evident over the years that winter bud survival has many factors. It is so important not to over crop the vines and to ensure they have good nutrition and to avoid any severe or prolonged water stress, especially going into winter. In our soil, which is rediculously low in nutirents, its important to ammend the soil and this has taken years but the value is really showing now.

Its also a bit odd, the hardiest varieties, like Vandal Cliche, had bud damage and best we can attribute that too was the warm spell in later December that may have started to bring them out of dormancy.

Arrow Lakes Vineyard is Growing

So we have been slowly growing the vineyard since we started growing grapes in 2008. The original vineyard was seven small test rows and we added another 3 a few years later. The original test vineyard that we tested about 30 varieities was only 0.33 of an acre.

Since then we established what varieties would grow and we cleared another acre and we have 1.33 acres planted in grapes. Those vines are comming along well and it was time to expand again.

This year we have cleared another 2 acres so the vineyard area is 3.33 acres. Well technically we didnt clear the land it was great work done by Crescent Bay Construction on the land clearing..and there was several cords of great firewood taken so far with more to come.

We will fence it all in this year and next year start with planting and trellising.

March Pruning

March was cold the first 2 weeks, in fact the coldest day this winter was March 6 with -20c. This is really unusual cold for March. But in the flip of a coin the cold is gone and the last 2 weeks have been fairly warm and the snow has melted significantly. Still lots of snow between the rows but there is exposed ground here and there and the soil is warming bringing on scale crack on the earliest varieties.


We did some lite pruning and cane positioning and tieing on some varieties that we do long cane pruning. We also started pruning the Ravat 34 into the 3 bud spurs on bi-lateral cordons (see below).  The canes look healthy comming out of winter - cutting into the cane the vine is nice and green.

We will have to do a secondary pruning later at the end of May when the shoots are about 5-7 inches long and keep the best ones. We want to have about 4 canes per trellis foot so this means we will have to eliminate about 1 cane per spur.  We understand that Ravat 34 will usually put out 2 clusters per cane with a combined weight of about 150-175 grams. So with 4 canes per foot we expect about 600-700 grams per foot of trellis or about 1.25-1.50lb per linear foot of trellis.

But this is perfect world estimates - late spring frost, cold during flowering, drought or other factors could affect the crop and you really don't know what you have until just before harvest.

Triomphe D'Alsace

I haven't really blogged about this unique and rather rare grape variety. Its another of the Kuhlman family created in France around 1911 to be disease and cold resistant.

The more well known vines created by Kuhlman at this time are the likes of Matechal Foch and Leon Millot. These are crosses of Goldreisling and Millardet de Grasset 101-14. Triomphe is instead a cross if Knipperl with Millardet de Grasset 101-14. Colmar Precose Noir also came from this same cross.

Triomphe is very vigorous blue grape and even in our sandy soil devoid of nutrients it can send out lots of 10 foot canes and side by side more vigorous than Foch. We could really go to a devided canopy on Triomphe and probably should.

This vine produces well every season, usually 2 clusters per shoot of spprox 70grms average. They ripen early like Foch and Millot but with lower acid so its great for blending.  However, we have found Triomphe makes a great wine on its own.

The flavour is similar to Foch and Millot for sure. Its often got a bad reputation from growers in other countries for not producing likeable wine. We disagree, but our climate and soil is completely different, and like Foch, grown in different locations can be very different in flavour, we suspect the same holds true here with Triomphe.

Few commercial examples out there but Luckett vineyard in Nova Scotia produces one that has received much praise. I also tasted one produced by Jost Vineyard in Nova Scotia which was quite nice.

Mid Winter Grape Vine Health

In mid winter we get out to check on the vines and see how they look. There has not been much snow this year so the vines are very exposed. This is a big contrast to the winter we had last year which was about 50% more snow than normal.

In fact we had so much snow last year (2017-2018) that it caused tremendous damage to the vines and trellises. The snow was so deep and heavy that the weight snapped a few of the end posts and broke vine cordons off the trunks and off of trellis wires.

As of early January 2019 it has not been colder than -9 celsius, so we are not expecting any cold damage. We took samples from some vines and they are looking green and healthy inside.

In about 8-10 weeks the snow will be mostly gone and we will be on to pruning then spring.

Remember the Drought of 2017?

So the summer of 2017 was the worst drought we have faced in 11 years of growing. We blogged about it this past March (see link) and reflected on what the drought may do to the following year crop.

One thing we were concerned about was the impact the drought would have on bud formation in 2017 and translate into the flowering and fruiting in 2018. We anticipated smaller clusters and poorer flower formation further up the cane. As such we pruned with spurs instead of long cane.

This was a good call as at flowering we did noticed fewer clusters further up the cane and smaller clusters as well on a few vines that we left with long cane pruning.

Some of the clusters even on long spur (5 bud Spur) pruned vines were smaller than normal, especially on Leon Millot, Marechal Foch and Colmar Precoce. The Leon Millot clusters were 20-25% smaller, and resulted in equal reduction in yeild. Leon Millot below...

Others like Acadie Blanc and Ravat were unaffected. But we spur prune these ones (2 bud spurs) and the buds on 2 bud spur pruned vines were less affected. These bud are first buds to be formed and finished forming before impact of drought caused damage.

2018 Vintage

So the wines are finished fermenting for the 2018 vintage and now its just waiting for them to settle out and age. "The waiting is the hardest part", not exactly as the late Tom Petty relayed, but once the wine is finished fermenting there is the wait till its ready....or not.

If you are into neaveau wines or early drinking styles you may already be into the 2018 vintage. We make a variety of styles and some may be ready shortly at the earliest but other, like Leon Millot and Marechal Foch are now in winter slumber waiting for spring or late winter bottling or potentially
even next fall.

As the year progresses I often take small samples along the way to see how the wine is comming along. So far this vintage, red or white, is turning out to be very good. Really impressed with the Triompe D'Alsace so far, the Evangeline is great again and the Ravat, despite the isssues with the cool weather and rain, is comming along nicely.

Interesting is that with the cool September we didn't get the ripening we usually do but most varieties continued ripening, just slower than usual. The exception was Petite Milo. It usually ripens to 22 brix but it only got to 20 and was quite high in acid. It is a bit less muscat-less fruity..more citrus moving towards green apple - like what you would get with white grapes that are a bit unde ripe.

Good to know how the year over year changes in weather affect this one...but it still makes a nice reisling-like wine.