June 2018

The vineyard right now is looking really good. We are confident that this year is going to be a good production year, and we already have berries set and the clusters are really nice and full. Right now they are the size of BBs and everything is progressing as it should be. Currently, we’re paying attention to our canopy management, which consists of shoot positioning and watching the vigor of the canopy. We are leaving all the canes on the crown (which is where the graft is positioned on the vine) and are in the midst of cutting off the sucker shoots to keep the vigor down. Shoot positioning is also a priority right now; shoot positioning is when you cut one shoot off to make room for the next season’s shoot. We are also de-leafing the fruit zone so we can get a lot of light and sunshine in the canopy of the vine. Ventilation is also important to keep moisture under control so we don’t have any kinds of mildew: powdery mildew and botrytis, for example.

We are actively performing soil management tests for nitrogen and pH in the soil. Once we know what the pH is we’ll go from there, but we are anticipating a good year because last year’s results were good.

Ron Buoncristiani