Inspired by others

After surfing the blogosphere, I've decided to post about something near and dear to my heart. I'll try to run through the lifecycle of winemaking, and give you a first hand view of the experience

I am a home vintner. I am a farmer, and I am a winemaker. These are my among my primary hobbies. A creative outlet so to speak. In a given year, I devote hundreds upon hundreds of hours tending the vines, pruning, pinching, training, fertilizing, dropping crop (thinning), cutting off wings (reducing the size of clusters).

I have 140 or so grapevines planted on a half acre of hillside land, southwestern facing, in the Sierra Foothills. The elevation here is about 2000 ft. All the vines are trellised. All the rows have been hand dug by myself, or my sons. It has taken the better part of 10 years to complete this work. The soil is a combination of rock, clay, with a little topsoil mixed in. Digging out the rows raises more questions than answers about the origins of the soil that you uncover shovel by shovel. Occasionally I come across ash levels, they provide evidence of past flash fires that roared through this land. I will find pockets of beautiful soil, and I wonder where that came from.

I do my best to amend the soil to ensure there are proper nutrients for the vines. Yet I have learned that grape vines need to struggle. In essence they are like weeds, as they will just about grow anywhere, however you need to keep them alive without coddling them too much. The more they struggle (within limits), the more likely they can produce special flavors.

Healthy robust, heavy bearning vines, produce ordinary wine. Vines that produce grapes grudgingly, produce someting very special.