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Re: smoke taint and insurance I spoke with my adjuster yesterday and learned a few things. 1) You need a separate lab analysis from samples taken before picking for each variety. You don't need results before picking or making wine. 2) You should pick even badly tainted fruit for the purposes of mai...

I had been noticing a pretty pronounced spiciness in all the freshly crushed pinot fermenters, but I hadn't thought too much about it. Then caught it again last night when pressing the chard, and it dawned on me that it's probably guaiacol/eugenol from the smoke. It's a spiced apple cider sort of ar...

All the pinot is in -- at about the point I'd like to think about starting to pick, for still wine, in a normal year. I'm still waiting on smoke taint results for a sample sent off on 8/26. I thought I caught a whiff of ash in one lot, but when you're looking intently for one thing, you tend to find...

Turned the corner, aromatically, in the winery today -- from overwhelming banana (kloekera/amyl acetate) to overwhelming fart (stressed yeast/reduction/H2S).

I've never seen a day like this. The sun never came up. It's been an orange-ish pre-dawn all day. I'll take the high temp of 62 about now, but I'm not sure it really matters since the world is so clearly about to end.

I looked up from the macro I was leafing a few nights ago to see one of my guys (hardest worker, worst picker) preparing to consolidate a couple picking lugs by stomping on the grapes in one lug to create more room. Needless to say, we had to review some of the basics on fruit handling.

Another GD heat wave coming this weekend. I irrigated my way through the last one and will try again with this one. It's not a great choice, but i'd rather risk having to saignee than to pick up 3 brix in a weekend. The picks so far have been for sparkling and rose, and I'm not too worried about a l...

I've always dodged the smoke and thought I was this year too, but It's gotten pretty heavy at ground level the last few days. Now, I'm researching smoke taint winemaking protocols, testing services and insurance coverage. What looked like an excellent vintage seems to be falling apart at the end, an...

Hit 19.4B tonight and had a sparkling pick called for Tues night. Never thought that civilized folk picked in August, but here I am.
I'm opening up irrigation lines that I haven't used since the 2017 heat spike.

Bottled today (with Celebrity Bottler Ken Zinns) and then headed out to the vineyard. No smoke that I've been able to smell at ground level in the vineyard yet. I picked up about 0.5 brix in the prospective sparkling rows (the only ones I'm sampling already) in the past 2 days, but temps at 7pm were...

That's excellent that Alder gives Ken his proper recognition. Nobody's more immersed in Bay Area winemaking.

Got 18.5 brix today in a section of pinot going for sparkling. That's about 10 days ahead of where I'd like to hit that point. I'm trying to irrigate my way thru this heat and opened up lines today that I hadn't used since the 2017 heat spike. Meanwhile, I'm trying to patch up about 3/4 of a mile of...

Vacation at the winery today, The mind numbing boredom of bottling seemed like bliss because Treasure Island (outside) topped out at 67F today. Tomorrow, I'm booted from the winery because my tenant winery is bringing in fruit from Lodi. Seems insanely early, but what's not weird about 2020?

f*ck this. Power out Fri night because our number came up first for the rolling blackout. Woke up in the middle of the night last night by wild windstorm and lightning strikes everywhere. I didn't realize my wife was out of bed, but she was in the backyard before I was. No power at home again this m...

Note that you can also get those tanks with glycol - something to consider in the case you want to use one for cold stability or controlling temperatures in the future. Cheers. I wanted that - until I checked the prices of glycol chillers! Holy cow! My customers will have to spit out tartrate cryst...

It's been a few days since I've been in the vineyard. I had to go up to St. Helena this morning, and everything I saw from the road looked completely through veraison. I think I did the same thing and had the same reaction last year--"Cripes, harvest is bearing down earlier than anticipated!" When I...

OK, thanks. Bare with me for this mathematical exercise and question: 1. In tank A I put the contents of barrel 1 and 2. 2. In tank B I put the contents of barrel 3 and 4. 3. Into a separate tank C, I transfer half of tank A and half of tank B to mix. Tank C is now full and has an equal amount of l...

Last spray (I hope) today. It's been many years since I've really cultivated to the degree I've done this year, and I was really aware of how much freaking dust is involved in that MO today. I used to think tractor cabs were for sissies. My tractor is a low-slung, vineyard panther that is great on a...

It doesn't matter the size or duration - it's getting it RIGHT that matters. I was out working in the vineyard yesterday morning and found another handful of colored berries. It is definitely on! I'm with Casey on this one. Crush is very definitely about the number of tons you move and about durati...

Well, I went ahead with the ProxyCarb (Sodium Percarbonate, as a substitute for PerCarb) from the cellar about ten days ago, as an experiment. No apparent phytotoxicity. As to efficacy, there was no observed mildew before or after. Hard to say anything with a great deal of confidence. I was less com...

Why, Stewart? It's the same every year, just the timing can vary. Merrill, when your harvest lasts 4-5 hours I can see you being relaxed about it. Mine is 7+ weeks of 16 clients taking 600 tons it's nothing I look forward to....it's what I look forward to being DONE! It doesn't matter the size or d...

If I saw a colored up berry right now, I'd avert my eyes and pretend I hadn't. Not mentally prepared to contemplate harvest yet.

I looked at the UC Davis fungicide trials for the first time in several years tonight https://ucanr.edu/sites/eskalenlab/files/316471.pdf . You have to go to pg 22 to get some quickly digestible results. PerCarb and Oxidate seem pretty benign and perform pretty well. My question is whether these spe...

Where is the mountains for you Stewart? I grew up in the Hwy 88 area, and that's still the home turf -- the Carson Pass area, generally. With family now, it's Pinecrest Lake. It's up 108, north of Yosemite. We started going there because Cal's Lair of the Bear camp is nearby. A lot of the appeal fo...

Got away to the mountains for a few days, and the car thermometer read 103 coming back thru the Central Valley today. That added some urgency to getting back in time to get some water on the vines this afternoon. My irrigation system is pretty tuneable but not very sophisicated. I have risers along ...

I was sorry to hear this. I don't have anything against ETS except its location. I usually have some other reason to head toward Windsor, including going to Vinquiry for supplies, and could usually drop samples at the lab on the same trip. With Scott Labs practically shut down, the only half-way con...

I used Weed Slayer for the first time this year. It has to be applied early, which I don't like. I had some rows where I only applied it to part of the row, because the other part of the row had big, recent cuts on the trunk where we were doing trunk renewal. It was definitely better than nothing, b...

Heavy winds forecast tonight, and that doesn't do fragile new grafts any good. So, the day was spent in hurry up mode to finish yet another pass battening down the new shoots. I only graft about a half acre at a time, but that patch seems to take almost as much work as the other 8. As an aside, I wo...

Thanks. I see what you mean. The ShipCompliant article linked in the article you cite is pretty on point. BTW my email to CDTFA on this subject was met with the promise of a response within 20 days. I came across a link a while ago, and right before they applied the new rule. But it was not that wi...

Greg -- that tidbit about the sales tax threshold is news to me. I did a quick cruise around the CDTFA website and can't find any reference to a sales threshold that would exempt/activate the local tax requirement. Can you point me to a source for that? Quick lookup: https://www.qbwinerysolutions.c...

Greg -- that tidbit about the sales tax threshold is news to me. I did a quick cruise around the CDTFA website and can't find any reference to a sales threshold that would exempt/activate the local tax requirement. Can you point me to a source for that?

First day of the heat wave in the vineyard, and it was a rough one. I have a half acre grafted over from pinot to chard, and those plants need water early and often. This is the 4th time I've irrigated already, and I'd never consider irrigating regular vines before June or July. It's a section that ...

Have not seen a tick and typically don't. Are you talking in the vineyard itself? Yes, in the vineyard. I'm surrounded by creeks, woodlands and pasture, so maybe I get more than in areas that are more vineyard adjacent. I also don't usually cultivate much, so there is often more grass for them to l...

Heading into bloom, and the heat this weekend is just what the Dr. ordered. It was shaping up to be a crappy and drawn out set period, but I hope a little heat will push things along. On a completely separate note, have other CA vineyard folk noticed that 2020 is the year of the super fast tick? Tic...

DIAM is no longer the only game in town for supercritical CO2 treated agglomerated corks. Trefinos claims the same treatment process. I used DIAM 10s very happily for 5 vintages and switched to Trefinos C3 (supposedly on par with DIAM 10 on OTR) last year. So far, so good with both. I gave Trefinos ...

Sprayed today and spotted a couple rootstock vines flowering, so the rest of the vineyard should be getting there in a few days. Drizzly today, and it looks that way for the next week. It's not good timing, even if I'm not flowering yet, because this steady moisture isn't going to help the caps dry ...

Stewart Is it widespread or localized? Btw enjoyed a Kendric chard over the weekend Thanks Timmy. The chard budded out a little earlier than the pinot and took the brunt. Viognier at the bottom of the vineyard got a little scorched, but it was a little behind the chard and the burn is more scattere...

I lost quite a few primary shoots to frost. Mostly in chardonnay in a flatter area. Secondaries are pushing fine now, but the yield won't be as good as it might have been without the frost.

Sorry Evan, that sale expired. I'd drop this thread off the list, but I don't see how to do that. Since it has other people's posts in it, I probably can't.

48 hour total just passed an inch. That's something anyway. Depending on the type of soil you have that might go down about 4-8 inches. Still not much to get excited about.....but we'll take it. Does the amount of water you use in frost protection get your soil up to something like field capacity a...

They pulled some from Azaya, in nearby Hick's Valley. I think that was a Pierce's issue, but I could be wrong. At the home ranch, they have done some grafting after finding that some of their initial choices wouldn't ripen, but I'm not aware of them pulling vines there.

It's definitely not Gary's. It's not even the coldest Syrah site in the SLH. Double L is a few miles north of Gary's and has a Syrah block. Also not Ascona. It's a pretty cool site, produces excellent wines, and is definitely a site to watch (like the Madson team) but like most SCM vineyards, it is...

Stewart, Any commentary/notes on the wines being offered/your wine-making style(s)? All but the sangio come from my vineyard in Marin, so they skew to the cooler climate end of the CA spectrum. The sangio is from my Mom's Shenandoah Valley vineyard. So, definitely warmer but picked in, I hope, a ti...

I'll re-purpose my note to the mailing list: A Message from Our CEO, in Which He Feigns Concern Dear List, In these trying times, I hope it will bring you some comfort to know that I am doing just fine. My family and I are modeling responsible social distancing in a bunker at a safe remove from the ...

My lone Thompson Seedless table grape vine is leafed out, but I checked and it has not suffered frost damage. The cover crop is between knee and armpit level, depending upon where it grows in the vineyard. The bell beans are slow this year, with the sweet pea outgrowing it, which is unusual. My cov...

Casey, have you been able to find a spray for weed control that is organic? Sure would be cheaper than hand-digging weeds like I do here. After hearing from quite a few people that Weed Slayer is a game changer for organic herbicide, I'm giving it a whirl this year. Wilbur Ellis is a North Bay supp...

IMG_20200311_125046079.jpg It pays to have talented friends. My buddy Evan from the coast came to inspect the suction in one our ponds. While starting up this pump we got a bunch pond weeds stuck in the pump intake. There's never a full day or a new challenge for a farmer. BTW that rust colored stu...

I think it's worth bending a bit if you're not a well-known label. I think people will take a flyer with BTG wines that they might not on full bottles. And you hope some direct to consumer sales result. Assuming it's a 3 case or more drop, I knock 10% off the wholesale price. During a glut, that can...

My irrigation pond is still 3 feet from being full, and I've never started the season being short of full. There's still time, but I'm starting to think about irrigation contingencies. For one thing, I have a small grafting project that may have to push back a year because grafted vines take extra w...

This is for a couple of short 175 case runs that I'll do by hand. Not enough to justify either a truck or the purchase of a machine. I'll probably just cork these as usual.

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