A cluster of budbreaks: 2020.

The last one to the budbreak-party is, as per usual, the Cabernet sauvignon (CS).  A little tardy (like my blog-recording of budbreak dates for the other Vinoland grape varieties this year), but when the CS finally shows up its little fuzzy buds are always blushing and winsome.  My excuse is that I was busy with pruning, only finishing on March 21st.
Here is the approximate (yup, like I said I was preoccupied) dates of Vinoland's other 2020 budbreaks;
Orange muscat:  February 26th.
Pinot grigio:  March 4th.
Syrah:  March 25th.
There you have it.  2020 on the record.

Pruning, performed.

I'm pooped, but I am finished with pruning (at 4.26 pm, to be exact).  Hallelujah!  It was a tough year, the rain has been incredible, this is the latest date ever that pruning has continued in Vinoland. 
I don't normally drink on Sundays, but the end of pruning always calls for a bit of a celebration.  I opened a bottle of something Vinomaker had given me on my birthday.  Another Crémant D'Alsace, the Emile Boeckel Brut Rosé is a delightful wine - right down to the simulated pink leather label (complete with faux silver stitching).  Quite pink, rather fizzy, very tasty.  Love it!
A second reason to have a glass of bubbles (as if I needed one) is that it was Mother's Day in England today, so cheers to my Vinomum.
Phew.  I'll sleep well tonight.

Frost wars.

It was a gorgeous day today, finally.  Beautiful blue sky, a few white fluffy clouds, temperature reached 66° F.  I managed to get quite a bit of pruning done.  Yay!  When, at 5.10 pm, I finished pruning for the day it started to rain - just as Vinodog 2 and I were going on our afternoon walk, of course.  With just one gigantic, dark grey cloud over Vinoland the rain did not last for long, thankfully.  The weekend forecast is promising.
Of course with clear, cloud-free spring nights comes freezing overnight temperatures and frosty mornings.  A neighbouring vineyard, Farella Vineyards, is preparing for such an eventuality.  (As an aside, I love this portable fan.)  It can be a bit of a battle, as frosts may or may not occur this time of year.  However, commercial vineyards need to be armed with preventative measures to ensure that the vines are protected from injury.  It's always something with Mother Nature.

Hydroponic farming.

I can honestly say that I have a new found appreciation for England's farmers, or rather how difficult it must be for them to grow or raise anything in the often calamitous English climate.  I myself am having a bit of difficulty farming here in, currently, not-so-sunny California.
I managed to get out into the vineyard quite early this morning and it was actually a little sunny.  However, I made the mistake of stopping for a cup of tea at 11.00 am and consequently wasted some valuable outside-time.  When I returned to the vineyard I barely managed to get in another 40 minutes of pruning before the heavens opened.  Determined to be finished pruning by this coming Sunday, I was hoping the weather would cooperate with me over the next four days, but nope. 
This afternoon, for the 3.00 pm hour, lightning was forecast.  What?  There was no way I wanted to be caught out in the vineyard with long metal loppers in my hands in lightning.  The lightning didn't materialise, not that it mattered, I was stuck indoors anyway.  The weather forecasts have been very changeable of late - as in they have been literally changing every 4 to 6 hours - and I don't know whether I am coming or going.  Neither does the rain.  Sigh.
At this rate I may have to ask Vinomaker if he has a headlamp I can borrow and some skunk repellent I can arm myself with, as I may have to resort to a bit of catch up nocturnal-farming.
Today was a bust, oh well.  One down, three to go.

The Mule-Ear Report.

My hopes of getting out into the vineyard Friday, for a little while at least, were dashed by a constant downpour that just got heavier and heavier as the day progressed.  Yesterday was a different matter.  Absolutely gorgeous sunshine meant that I was able to get out into the vineyard and get some pruning done.  Also, Vinodog 2 and I had a lovely mid-afternoon walk, always a better event when the two of us don't get drenched, and on the walk I discovered yet another new wildflower.
I first noticed several Mule-ears (Wyethia glabra), growing here and there a couple of weeks ago, due to their rather conspicuous burdock-like, lance-shaped leaves, but I had no idea what they were.  Now, however, they are flowering and the beautiful, vivid yellow blooms are extremely cheery looking.  Still, it took me a while to identify the Mule-ears as at first I thought they might have simply been wild sunflowers, but in researching sunflowers, wild or cultivated, I came up with nothing that resembled my neighbourhood-native.  But I persisted and finally identified the Wyethia glabra, a member of the Asteraceae family, as my new floral-find.  So I'm happy to report, well, that I'm happy with my discovery.     

October 1982.

I recently got to partake in the tasting of a 1982 Groth Cabernet Sauvignon.  And it was stupendous, probably one of the nicest wines I have ever tasted.  Stunning, really stunning.
In October of 1982, the young Vinogirl had just started college: the vineyard workers at Groth had just started to harvest the Cabernet sauvignon grapes that went into this wine.  Hard to believe that what I was drinking was a 36 year old vintage.  Whilst I got a lovely, crazily nuanced strawberry jam vibe from the '82 (acid was sublime), the tablemate, to my right, got plum jam.  The tablemate to my left wouldn't stop drinking long enough to comment - can't say I blame him.
It is fitting that I post about Cabernet Sauvignon this evening, as I started to prune Vinoland's Cabernet vines today.  It's a little distressing to me that I am only just getting started, I usually set myself a goal of being finished with pruning by the 22nd of March.  That is not going to be the case this year.  However, I must keep calm and prune on.  Panic!

How green am I?

Gorgeous weather yesterday and today, so I was lucky enough to get quite a bit of pruning done.  However, I am still really behind because of all the rain we have been having.  (Panic?)  But today, I was able to finish pruning the Syrah vines and I got them all tied down.  Phew, what a relief.
I did have one teensy-weensy hiccup, though: I ran out of twist ties.  Vinomaker had gone out and I had no idea where he kept our supply of ties.  Then I remembered that I had bought a bunch of asparagus yesterday and it had a couple of ties on it.  Voila!  Recycling at its finest.
So Happy Finished-Pruning-Syrah Day, or Happy St. Patrick's Day, whichever celebration one prefers.  I'm going with the former.

Plus: the Pinot grigio.

Not to be outdone by the Orange muscat, the Pinot grigio vines are also ready to get started with the 2019 growing season.  I do love the fact that spring is fast approaching.  And I love that I don't have to check it's proximity on a calendar - I have grapevines for that.
I'm starting to panic a little, as I always do this time of year, that with all this rain I may not be able to get all the Syrah and Cabernet sauvignon vines pruned before they want to start going through bud break.  The weather this coming week is forecast to be nice.  We'll see.

Make haste.

Some nice sunny, springlike weather today was exactly what I needed to get a start on pruning the Syrah vines.  I would have started yesterday, but the wind was just too strong.  Armed with my Felcos (actually, I grabbed a pair of Vinomaker's as I couldn't locate either of mine), and a pair of loppers for the big cuts, I headed out into the vineyard with my trusty Vinodog 2 bringing up the rear.  That was until V2 spotted the neighbour's horses.  It was then that the quiet, contemplative discipline that is pruning quickly devolved into an uproarious disturbance.  Sigh.

Don't start me, fuzzy-buddy.

No, stop!  I am not ready for budbreak.  This promiscuous, young Viognier vine, the only Viognier vine in Vinoland, is trying its hardest to get going for the season.  I made it my job to set the little fellow straight, but not before I finished pruning the Pinot grigio vines. 
A good example of apical dominance in Vitis vinifera, albeit a very subtle one, this stunted lateral shoot was having delusions of grandeur.  The whole unit was removed (as is all the lateral growth of this nature), but not before the prospect of an early start to the growing season gave me, well, a little start.

I like lichen...

...but I'm besotted with bryophytes, aka mosses.  Which is just as well as Vinoland is covered in the green stuff right now: everywhere is very moist.  There has been quite a lot of rain thus far in 2019 and more is on its way.
Unfortunately, I don't know much about mosses.  I think moss is a fascinating plant, the way it can go dormant and survive through California's arid summers alone is amazing.  But with about 13,000 different species worldwide it is nigh impossible for me to identify any that are thriving in Vinoland right now.
I started pruning the Pinot grigio vines yesterday and it was a little concerning to me to be trampling all over the myriad of mosses that are growing between the rows and near the vines.  My anthropomorphism is raging right now, I'm contemplating wearing earplugs so I can be spared the bawling of the bryophytes.

A quick fix.

Still suffering from a bit of a shopping-hangover from Christmas, this afternoon, when I had resolved to start pruning the Vinoland vineyard, I was faced with a bit of a dilemma; having worn out the left thumb of my old pruning gloves I really needed a new pair, today.  Not wanting to drive over to a certain hardware store on the other side of Napa to procure a pair, I decided to do a quick patch job with duct tape (AKA gaffer tape in Blighty) on my old gloves.  It did the trick.  In fact, I doubled up the tape and have decided to try to make my old faithfuls last one more pruning season.  Gloved-fingers crossed.

Chips and spread.

Yes, here it is, the obligatory, annual, first pile-of-prunings photograph.  I managed to finish pruning Vinoland's table-grapes today.  It took me a whopping 10 minutes to prune the remaining two vines.  I was exhausted afterwards, hee, hee.  The pruning of the table grapes created a small pile of vine-prunings, small enough that I could probably pick the whole thing up quite readily with both arms.
It's a completely different story when I get to the wine-grapes. 
It still amazes me, each and every year, how much vegetative-material the vines produce.  It's a viticultural miracle that nutrients in the soil combined with water and sunshine can create so much vegetation, shoots and leaves galore.  (Well, pruning determines the number of shoots, but Mother Nature dictates shoot-length.)  And clusters of grapes on top of that.
Of course, all that pruned wood needs to be disposed of.  The Napa Valley Grape Growers outline, in their Best Practices, an online educative resource, the four main ways of disposing of prunings; chop and disc; chop and cover crop; chip with a chipper; burn like billy-o.  (I predict, in the not so distant future that burning will be banned outright in the Napa Valley, even though it is the most efficient way of disposing of grapevine material.)  In Vinoland, we chip and spread - a practice that works best for our modest vineyard operation - returning all that vegetative matter back to the ground from whence it came.

The party's over.

Yes, it is time to return to reality; time for the party muselets to be thrown away; time for the New Year.
On the whole, I've been having a pretty slow start to 2019.  I did, sort of, start pruning today - one table-grapevine to be exact - before it began to rain.  Gotta start somewhere, titter, titter.  One vine at a time.
The weather has been quite damp this January and it has cramped my outdoors-style significantly.  I have, however, had time to read several books so it hasn't been a total loss.  And it's not like the vineyard is going anywhere.  I'll get to wherever I'm going, eventually.

Give me a hand.

I am finished!  Pruning for 2018 is at an end in Vinoland.  And not a moment too soon, I wore out the left thumb of my favourite Stanley pruning gloves.  What a shame, they're so soft and supple.
I dodged rain showers, determined to be finished today, until I finally refused to stop further for Mother Nature and continued pruning and tying the canes down in the rain.  Dedicated, me.  I didn't need any assistance pruning this year, but I will take a round of applause.

Piles of prunings.

I finished pruning and tying down Vinoland's Pinot grigio vines today.  The vines are all seemingly healthy and robust, so there was a lot of wood to prune off.  The pruned wood is now neatly piled, at each end of the rows, awaiting Vinomaker and his chipper.
I'm always filled with a moderate sense of accomplishment when I am finished with one varietal, especially when I've had a relatively straight forward time of it.  And happy that I didn't even get a blister.  Phew!
Now on to the Syrah vines...

PG snips.

I started pruning Vinoland's Pinot grigio vines today.  After two days of rain it was pretty soggy out in the vineyard, and chilly, so I had to talk myself into getting started.  But once I got started, I was immediately reminded of how much I enjoy pruning; it's just me, the grapevines and my trusty Felco 6s.  Oh, and the little black and white dog that couldn't stop barking at a possum, cat, skunk, or something, hunkered down in a drainage pipe, that was trying to avoid her.  Prune on!

And so it begins.

Pruning has started in Vinoland.  This afternoon, taking advantage of the sunny, but chilly, dry weather I began to prune Vinoland's Orange muscat vines.  I didn't get very far; failing light, and a mouthy little dog who wanted to go for a walk, curtailed my progress.  But I did get started and that is all that counts.  Roll on vintage 2018.

Tied and tired.

I'm done!  I achieved the goal I set for myself and pruning is finished for 2017.  It took a lot of effort, I ignored a lot of other stuff I could've been doing and my hands are sore, but all the vines are pruned and the canes are tied down.  It feels great to be finished.  Whoo hoo!
Meanwhile, one week later, the Orange Muscat vines seem to be growing before my very eyes. The baby shoots have lengthened about 3 inches in the past six days.  The nascent inflorescence are now clearly visible.  I love this time of year, but I'm just a bit tired to enjoy it right now.

Budbreak: PG-style.

I had my suspicions.  When I drove past the Pinot Grigio vines on my way to work yesterday, I thought there was something afoot.  And I was right. Seems the Pinot Grigio vines have been enjoying the spell of warm weather, as have I. We haven't missed the rain one bit.
The weather started to cool down Wednesday and it was forecast to rain last night, but it didn't, so I got a good day of pruning the Cabernet Sauvignon vines in.  I had set myself the goal of finishing pruning everything by this Sunday, the 19th of March.  Even though I have to work at TWWIAGE tomorrow, I think I am still on target.  Fingers crossed.