Growing grapes and making wine in Bellevue
Posted in viticulture on May 6th, 2008
With the growing season off to a cold start, I’ve been thinking about how to grow the best grapes in a cool season. Cluster thinning and leaf pulling can help by maximizing sugar production, in a grape vine, and by making the most of the sugar it produces. Good canopy management will bring out the […]
Posted in viticulture on Apr 28th, 2008
Do grape vines know what they’re doing?
Left to themselves, grapevines will push out more clusters of fruit than they can ripen well. Making wine from such grapes will be disappointing: not enough sugar, poor flavor, too much acid. The problem is that a given vine can only pull in a finite amount of nutrients through […]
Posted in viticulture on Apr 21st, 2008
This grape growing season, here in the Puget Sound, is off to a slow start. Most vine growth will occur with warmer temperatures in the summer, so the cool weather we’re seeing right now might not affect this year’s crop. Still, it’s got me thinking about making up for lost time - managing the vines […]
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on Oct 15th, 2007
I harvested 14 oz (400 g) of the Pinot Noir on 10/13/07. That completes the harvest for 2006; here are the details:
Pinot Noir: 21 oz (600 g)
Leon Millot: 37 oz (1050 g)
Price 17 oz (480 g)
Siegerrebe: 11.5 oz (325 g)
All: 86.5 oz (2455 g)
5 lb 6 oz isn’t a lot, but it’s more than last […]
Posted in viticulture on Oct 2nd, 2007
There are several species of grapes, but the great classic wine grapes are all Vitis vinifera. Maybe that’s because Norton isn’t well known outside the eastern and mid western US. It’s parentage isn’t known exactly, but it’s predominantly Vitis aestivalis with hints of Vitis labrusca and, despite being known as an all-American grape, Vitis vinifera. […]
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on Sep 27th, 2007
I was on the fence about harvesting the Leon Millot. They were ripe or nearly ripe, but I wondered if they could benefit from a little more time. That was before I saw the weather forecast. It calls for a lot of rain, starting tomorrow, so I pulled in the Leon today.
9/21/07 […]
Posted in viticulture on Sep 21st, 2007
The incursion into my bonsai vineyard on Wednesday knocked some grapes to the ground. I gathered these up, ate some, discarded some, and froze the rest. This was the official, if unintentional, start to my grape harvest and it totaled 3 oz (100 g) of Leon Millot. At that point, I decided to bring in […]
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on Sep 20th, 2007
Bird netting saved most of the grapes
Marsha was frantic and ran to wake me up this morning. I was still groggy, so it took me a while to figure out that all the grape vines had been knocked down. We didn’t see what happened. Nobody and nothing was about. I think it was an animal, […]
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on Sep 3rd, 2007
I love watching my grape vines change over the course of a season. First they break bud, then they leaf out, later they flower, after that they set fruit. Each of these stages is exciting, and I’ve written about all of them. When the grapes change color from green black (or red or yellow), it’s […]
Posted in bonsai orchard, bonsai vineyard, viticulture on Jul 16th, 2007
I wrote before that watering my bonsai vineyard can be tricky. Too much water reduces the quality of the fruit and can delay dormancy. All plant life needs water, however, and too little can harm the vine. If you’re growing grape vines in pots, none of the local knowledge about climate, soil, and irrigation apply. […]