Easy Sunday: I am trying to grow great grapes.

You may want to skip this post. It is about my vineyard, not politics.

And it is about something pretty mundane: pulling grape leaves off of vines to expose grapes to the sun. 

The task is for a good purpose: to make superior grapes.

On Saturday my nephew and I got updated vine management advice from Adelberto Paz from Valley View Vineyards. We were plugging away at the job of removing selected leaves from the east side of Pinot Noir plants. He said we needed to pick up the pace and start on the Cabernet Sauvignons soon. 

I am hoping Valley View Vineyards will buy my grapes this year, the first real harvest year at scale. I am growing them under their advice to meet their standards, but they are under no obligation to buy them. And given the hazards and uncertainties of farming, I cannot guarantee that I will have them to sell. There is a wine-grape crisis underway. Tariffs have badly damaged our export markets, and there has been a downturn in domestic wine consumption. Alcohol suddenly became less popular. Instead of being, maybe, a little bit good for you, people have decided that red wine is, maybe, a little bit bad for you. Markets change. Then sometimes they change back. People have been drinking wine for thousands of years, and people like how it makes them feel and how it lubricates sociability: cheers! Supply and demand will balance out, but maybe not this year.

My best shot at selling my grapes is to grow spectacularly good ones.

Last year the Cabernets were the weakest of the three varieties. Still small plants. Few grapes. The Cabernets are the  most commercially viable of the three varieties this year: I have a heavy set of good-looking grape clusters. Cabernet Sauvignon vines blossom, ripen, and are picked later in the year than Malbecs and Pinot Noir grapes. My Cabernets hadn't blossomed yet when the April frost came that hurt the earlier varieties in my and many other local vineyards.  

The rows are in a north-south direction. Leaves that cover the grapes on the east side of the plants get pulled off so that they are exposed to the morning sun. Leaf-pulling reduces the chance of mildew that might grow from dew that lingers on grapes amidst dense foliage. Exposed grapes also means that the spray program against powdery mildew is more effective. The sun also sweetens grapes and improves flavor. We let the leaves grow on the west side of the plant where they would otherwise get the hot afternoon sun in the hot dry summer days of the Medford-area climate. Direct sun is a mixed blessing. 

Here is what the Cabernet vines look like before the leaf-pulling job that we are starting now:

Here is what that vine looks like after those leaves are removed:

Take 14 seconds to view this video to see how an experienced vineyard worker pulls leaves. He is amazingly fast. He won't be replaced by artificial intelligence anytime soon.

Click here: https://youtu.be/QHwpfQ99x-A

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