I tried cubes twice and didn’t like the result so never tried again. Easily could have been my usage of them. Another area where I can’t offer anything of value.
Saying you didnt like the cubes is helpful, it makes me feel smarter for bypassing those and paying more for the spheres! 
This is a very long post.
This has become the most frustrating vintage in over a decade. I hesitated to post this as I don’t want to whine but decided to do so for those who have been reading this and think, hey that seems like fun. Generally it is fun but then there are years like this.
At the start of the season, I count many more dead vines than normal. Some of this is expected as I have had crown gall in some of my reds for a long time. But this seems to be something more as there are dead vines where I don’t find any signs of crown gall. As things progress, other vines are stunted and there are distinct patterns of dead/stunted vines in the vineyard that point to bigger issues.
Next is fruit set. Fruit set is always variable. What makes this year different is the number of vines that don’t have any fruit. I have 20 viognier vines and counted 8 clusters total. Barbera isn’t as bad but still light, made worse by the small bunch size. The Chardonnay did set the best crop to date as did the tannat. The Sangiovese is the only one that would be considered heavy.
When the Japanese beetles set in, it was like no other year. This is my 16th vintage and I have never experienced anything like this. My normal control is to pick them off and put them is a bucket of soapy water. Most years that works fine with picking every other day. This year, I was picking hundreds and maybe thousands off every morning and there would be a greater number the next day. Finally had to admit that pesticides were going to be needed. The leaf damage was severe but mostly contained to the highest part of the canopy that I allowed to grow higher than normal thus limiting the impact.
About the same time came the heat wave and the drought. In most years water isn’t a problem. Dry farming works fine. I have one small section that has soil with low water holding and had to dig out the soaker hose to keep that section from suffering drought stress.
There is a plus side to all of this. Generally my biggest issue is downy mildew. But with weeks without rain and unseasonably low humidity, there is no downy at all. The extra canopy height therefore isn’t a problem and I can keep it longer than normal and make up for much of the loss.
The heat resulted in a bit more sunburn than normal but nothing severe. However, it accelerated color change. Normally, I have weeks from when I first see color to when the slowest ripening grapes are showing. This offers time to get nets on without extensive wildlife pressure. This year, everything started turning at the same time. I netted everything in three days but only because I left one quarter of the vineyard without nets. I netted the rows with the most potential. The squirrels and birds made short work of what wasn’t needed.
And yet somehow, the fruit that remains, is some of the best looking fruit I have ever had.
If only that was the end of the story. Unfortunately, it is not. The squirrels have found ways into the nets and eaten large parts of what was covered. Sometimes they find weak spots where I didn’t fully snug something. More often they just tear a hole in the nets and go through that way. The nets are old and apparently degraded over time as in prior vintages this wasn’t as much of a problem. There is always some loss but nothing this extreme.
We harvested whites yesterday. Normal yield is about 8 gallons. We got 2. Half is from the petit manseng as the squirrels mostly left that untouched. They ate nearly all the Chardonnay and large amounts of the other whites. The two gallons taste great, which makes it even worse.
The reds won’t be ready for another three weeks, if there is anything left by then.
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Get some bulk cayenne powder and sprinkle it everywhere the squirrels would be coming to the nets. You may need to reapply a couple times. You can also make a pepper oil spray, which is good for things they may climb on. They don’t like pepper, but are smart, so may figure out new ways to get in.
Something that works great for deer, and certainly some other critters, but not sure about squirrels is scented dryer sheets. They’re cheap and the noxious smell drives things away. Might be worth trying. Tie some to the netting, tack some up on fences, in strategic locations. You can check on the smell to see if they’ve petered out.
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Thanks Wes. I may try that. The only things giving me pause is that there isnt a few acces points. I would have to cover 320 feet to encircle both vineyards as the squirrels come from every direction.
Thanks for sharing Brian. Things like these are enough to make me question why we even do this crazy hobby in the first place. While my nets held up perfectly last year, I did have a problem this year with fairly large sections being chewed open but what I assume are squirrels or rats (or both). This did cause a loss in crop of about 10-15% which really bummed me out, between that and the pressure from black rot it’s been a constant battle to get even 60% of what I should. Not comparing my struggles to the unique shit storm that you faced this year, more so I’m just here to commiserate with you. 
Ugh. Sorry about the nets but thanks for sharing. One of my concerns is that net quality has decreased since i bought mine. With my squirrel pressure, I need a net that they cant put holes in or there is no point. I counted six holes in one net that had none when i put it on.
For blackrot, you have to get everything out of the vineyard or bury it. Any mummies left make the problem worse the next year. I had a black rot problem that i only got under control when i brought in a dump truck of rock and covered the vineyard with it. I did that to try to reduce the downy and it didnt really work. The weeds just grew back. But it stopped the black rot. Remove everything, put down a weed mat, turn the soil, something to get rid of all the infected debris and things should improve.
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Hey Patrick
I just read through this whole saga from beginning to end. Awesome job! I have a small vineyard in northern CA, and in my experience, you did a lot right! I was thinking of a couple of resources that might be very helpful, assuming you don’t already know about them.
The first is in your neck of the woods:
Fritz Westover with Virtual Viticulture Academy
Just Google him and start watching all the free videos he has. You can join if you want more
For the winemaking part:
Jim Duane and insidewinemaking.com. If you don’t already know of this one, it will probably be a new addiction!
Carry on Amigo!
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Thank You for this Cliff!
As you know this is the time of year where a grower and winemaker can finally get a moment to do anything else so this is a great time to check out some new resources while the vines are almost dormant and the wine is resting in barrel.
We have not had our first freeze yet, which means that the pepper crop is still going strong and should net almost 30lbs of fruit this year. I’ll have my hands full cleaning those and setting up fermentations over the holidays, but I look forward to another vintage of sauces!
There were some power tools involved if I recall the picture correctly!
I have dug so many post holes, no power equipment.
-Al
I did use the project as an excuse to the wife as to why I “needed” that post hole digger. To buy one was only 2X the cost of renting one and I’ve gotten plenty of use out of it after the project so it was a great purchase. The one in the picture is the 40v Ryboi electric one, it’s a great piece of equipment.
Now that being said, the soil here once you get about 2ft down is extremely dense clay. Post hole diggers and dense wet clay don’t mix very well so there were several shovels and the manual post hole digger (the kind with the 2 long wooden handles) was used quite a bit. Another lesson learned about very dense clay soil: posts dont stay put once they have tension and vine weight on them 
so last winter I had to dig 2 of them out and put 100lbs of concrete into each and then reset them. This winter I get the joy of doing the same thing on the other side 
That is one sort of PHD that I share with you!
We have similar red clay soil here in Virginia. The PHD is for dirt removal, the 20lb pry bar is for digging. Between the two it’s quite a workout.
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Year 5 has officially begun! Just as I finish bottling and selling the pepper sauces in February each year I get only a couple weeks to recover and then bud break! This year bud break started on 3/17 and of course we got a hail storm only a week later no real damage though as the buds were still fresh and not every spur has even budded yet. I did the “Double prune method” again this year where I left all canes at about 10 buds until the break and then I went through and cut everything to 2 buds per spur. I plan to then go back through in a couple weeks and choose a single position on each spur based on whichever is healthier cane or is growing in the more ideal direction.
Beyond that the only other thing to report at this point is that the 2024 will need to be bottled soon. It’s been sitting under the stairs under an airlock with medium toast french oak spheres in the carboy. I’ll need to order glass, create my labels and get it bottled here pretty soon before the vineyard work starts to become a heavy load. 2025 here we go!
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Looking forward to your updates
YES! I was wondering how your vines were doing. Thanks for this update - I am most curious!
Anyone with more experience than me know what’s going on here? Dont think I’ve ever seen this in the vineyard.
Aerial roots. One article below. In my vineyard, these are more common in vines that have other issues.
https://grapes.extension.org/aerial-root-formation-in-grapevines/
Thanks Brian, I’m seeing them on most of the vines (all varietals) right now. We had over 5 inches of rain last week so I was wondering if perhaps that may have caused this as all that rain followed by a few days of 85 degrees and son has driven explosive growth in the vineyard. I was out cleaning up shoot positions yesterday and started seeing these all over and wasn’t sure if I should cut them out or not, I decided not to until I could learn more about what was happening.
I have always left them and they generally go away naturally. The only thing to watch is if any of them are close to the ground because if they do reach it, they will root. I have had that happen a few times