The ruler of Vinoland.

If I'm not careful, I may become the victim of a viticultural-insurrection.  The majority of Vinoland's grapevines look like they are on track to yield their biggest crop ever this season, however, the Syrah vines look like they are vying for domination of the entire vineyard.  Whilst there are lots of average-sized clusters in the Syrah block, the vast majority are simply massive (the photograph doesn't do the largeness of the front cluster justice).  I'll probably be sleeping with one eye open until it's time to harvest the Syrah and put paid to their Machiavellian-maturation.

How green is my valley.

I don't know if it's me, the light quality today, or the fact that Vinoland's grapevines got a little extra TLC last night, but everything in Vinoland just looks wonderfully verdant today.  The Pinot grigio grapes are definitely a little shinier: I'll explain.
In the never ending quest to produce good quality grapes from disease free vines, preventing pests from damaging the grape crop calls for a combination of techniques, or integrated pest management (IPM).  Along with cultural practices, sometimes chemical control, the use of pesticides, can be more effective in controlling pests (in the greater context of a broad IPM strategy).  Yesterday evening was the first time Stylet-Oil (SO) was used on the grapevines (with a little Mettle® fungicide thrown in for good effect).  SO is a little more effective against powdery mildew (Uncinula necator) (PM) in cooler growing seasons (like the one the Napa Valley is experiencing this year) versus the more conventional use of sulphur.  Sulphur needs warmer temperatures to volatize (65°F is the recognised minimum temperature required for sulphur activity against PM), whereas SO is not temperature dependent and so it acts as an eradicant, protectant and, most importantly, an antisporulant 24 hours a day.  In layman's terms, SO stops spores from growing, and insects from breathing.  And it makes baby-grapes shinier.

Bad Week.

I'm so glad that TIME magazine (September 25 2017 issue) summed up the 2017 growing season for its readership in one small sentence, albeit in a large red dot.
Yes, admittedly, it did get a little toasty earlier this month.  The mercury climbed to 108 °F in Vinoland and got as high as 114 °F up in Rutherford.  Grapevines do not thrive in extremely hot weather, not many plants do. However, with careful canopy management and an effective irrigation programme - throughout the entire growing season, not just when it is hot - most vineyards fare quite well.  The vast majority of Napa's growers will have planned ahead to ensure that their vineyards could withstand a heatwave.  Consequently, because of these best management practices, vineyards valley-wide saw very little raisining.
My sense of the 2017 growing season is that it has been a rather average one, more normal in many respects.  It isn't that unusual to experience changeable weather in any growing period.  The vineyards of the Napa Valley may, or may not, encounter bud-killing frosts in late spring, rainy days in early summer and the occasional spell of exceptionally high temperatures, and survive it all.  The sky is not falling down.
Curious as to what passes as a 'Good Week' in TIME?  Fast food chain, Chipotle, is now serving up a spicy cheese at all of its restaurants.  Very hot news indeed.

Everybody's doing it.

Pruning that is. For what will be my last post on the subject of pruning for a while, I have decided to showcase a cordon-trained vineyard that is about a half mile north of Vinoland - Farella-Park.
Although Farella-Park produces wine under its own label it would indeed be very rare to ever see the wine for sale in a retail location. Instead, this vineyard chooses to sell the majority of its grapes to various wineries around the Napa Valley. Whilst Farella-Park farms many distinct grape varieties, they have chosen (from what I can see from passing by) to cordon-train and spur-prune the entire vineyard. Cordon-training is a relatively simple way to maintain a grapevine once the permanent structure, the cordon, has been established. Consequently, it is the most common style of training to be spotted around the valley.
Caught mid-prune, you can see that the vineyard manager has still quite a fair bit of work to be going on with, one snip at a time. Carry on!

Rain, rain, go away!

My poor grapes!
It rained all day yesterday. Let me qualify that...we just experienced, in the San Francisco Bay Area, the worst October storm since the 1960s. Vinoland looks like a battlefield. Mother Nature has deposited her detritus everywhere, the autumnal colours of which are pretty, but the acorns make walking around extremely difficult. Our creek is full, there are puddles everywhere, the firewood is wet, and the Vinodogs are bored.
Last Sunday I did a quick sugar reading of our Cabernet grapes. They were only up to a rather disappointing 22.8 degrees Brix, nowhere near ready to harvest...and now wet, grey weather.
My poor grapes!