Vineyards, the good, the bad and the ugly!

Over the years I've conducted many wine training sessions, educational dinners, tastings, judgings etc. It seems that the questions are always somewhat similar, people want to know more about the wine or where it was grown, but one question has always stood out. I was asked by a customer once why, as they were traveling in California Wine Country, that some vineyards were huge, overgrown and almost touching the ground while others looked like nicely manicured lawns. My answer was that one owner just let the vines grow (remember, like english ivy, vines will grow like crazy if you let them) and accepted whatever quality the grapes might bring while the nicely manicured look actually produced more consistent high quality grapes. "How could that be", she asked. Well, as the vines grow uncontrolled, the canopy thickens and creates a shelter effect over the grapes which reduces air flow (air flow helps prevent mildew and fungus growth) and limits fruit maturation due to less direct exposure to sunlight. The well manicured vineyard keeps the canopy (leaf) growth to a minimum which keeps good air flow and fruit exposure for more uniform fruit development. There are various ways to trim back the canopy, specialized machinery that cuts the overgrowth back with blades or bursts of high pressure air which shatters the leaves but dosen't damage the grape clusters..or the old fashion (costly) way of having a crew manually go through and trim back the canopy. While in California several weeks back I was walking through our vineyards and was reminded of this question while viewing not only how beautiful Shannon Ridge vineyards are but how it is necessary to keep the vineyards maintained in order to grow the highest quality grapes. Our director of Marketing, Rick Gunier also reminded me of this yesterday (Thanks Rick!) and sent a few photos he took yesterday of the vineyards, enjoy!







P.S. Grape harvest began in the Sacramento Valley yesterday.





Rick wrote"While up on the ranch today I noticed the care we take of our vines. Thought you might like to blog a little about it.
We go great lengths to protect our Tempranillo vines, Our bird friends also love them. So to keep the crop for our wine lovers we have to use netting over each roll that boarders our natural rural neighborhood.