Growing grapes and making wine in Bellevue
Posted in viticulture on Jun 27th, 2007
The flowers have given way to immature fruit.
I took this photo on 6/21/07 and you can (only just) see that the flowers have faded leaving the beginnings of grapes behind. What you can’t see are the hoplia beetles, they left with the flowers and have moved on to the Pinot Noir.
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on Jun 23rd, 2007
Oz Clarke describes Riesling, in his Grapes and Wines, as the “teacher’s pet” of grapes. “I wonder what it feels like,” he asks, “being the wine experts’ favorite grape, yet failing to excite the palates of the vast majority of wine drinkers across the world?” Well, Siegerrebe doesn’t have that problem; it is most definitely […]
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on Jun 16th, 2007
First the good news. The Leon Millot are blooming!
I took these photos on 6/12/07, though I first noticed that the Leons were blooming on 6/6/07. The next photo shows the bad news: Hoplia Beetles love to eat flowers, including grape flowers.
At least I think they’re Hoplia Beetles. They fit the description in Jeff Cox’s From […]
Posted in viticulture on Jun 13th, 2007
Swenson Red really does need to be cane pruned. I didn’t know that yet, and I pruned to spurs. I got a bit of good news though, as you can see in the photo, I’ll get at least one cluster this year! Hey, that’s more than I thought I would get.
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on May 23rd, 2007
Advice on fertilizing and irrigating conventional vineyards is often easy to come by, but the rules change in a bonsai vineyard where you plant grape vines in pots and trim the roots every year. You must supply water and fertilizer to keep the vines healthy and to get a good crop. The key question is […]
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on May 16th, 2007
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that my Pinot Noir clone, ESP374, is not highly regarded. Its biggest problem is that it sets more fruit than it can ripen well. It over-promises and under-delivers, and, ever the optimist, does the same thing year after year. To make good wine from this clone, I pluck out immature […]
Posted in viticulture on May 15th, 2007
Pinot Noir was one of the first grape vines I acquired. My research indicated that it was the only traditional red wine grape that would ripen in my neck of the woods, and I was right about that. What I missed was how many different kinds of Pinot Noir there are. It’s a very old […]
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on May 10th, 2007
In yesterday’s article about pruning, I mentioned that I pruned to spurs on a vertical cordon. That means the trunk is permanent and I maintain short branches of one year old wood, called spurs, that come out of the trunk. If those one year old branches were long, a dozen buds or more, they would […]
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on May 9th, 2007
Grape vines need annual pruning. Because I grow mine in pots, they also need annual root trimming. I’m still getting the hang of this, but my current thinking is to train my grape vines to a vertical cordon. The single permanent trunk with fruiting spurs (short one year old branches) will be compact and easy […]
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on May 2nd, 2007
I grow this lesser known wine grape, a Gewürztraminer and Madeleine Angevine cross, in my bonsai vineyard. Here it is on April 30.