Premature summer has given way to some beautiful spring weather, including clouds and, yes, a little bit of rain.  We actually received an unexpectedly generous shot of 2.3 inches of rain on April 24-25 that was readily soaked up by rapidly drying topsoil.  Unfortunately, this past week’s chance of rain/thunderstorms on several days translated into only an additional 0.1 inches of rain.  Overall, we have received an essentially average 23+ inches of rain during our traditional wet season, but this is unlikely enough to fully recharge our well after several drought years.

The vine shoots have nearly reached their maximum length, growing rapidly in the last month.  Bloom–the flowering of grapevines– has already happened in our Quinta touriga and tinta cao sections and is just about to begin in the primitivo and barbera.  Bloom is not marked by showy flowers but rather by a delicate, distinct, honey suckle-like aroma that lasts about a week.  We typically sample petioles at this time to check on nutritional status of the vines ahead of fruit set.

The main vineyard operations at this time of year are regular spraying to prevent powdery mildew–we primarily use an organic oil product–and shoot thinning (sometimes called suckering).  Our grapevines try to produce many more shoots than we intend them to, and the extra shoots need to be removed to focus the vine’s energy and better open the vine up to sun and air.   The shoot thinning is a very labor-intensive operation for which we typically need to engage outside labor to augment our own in order to complete in a timely manner.

Two additional commercial wines made with our grapes have recently been bottled and are available for sale from Wreckless Blenders in Carmichael, CA.  We had the pleasure of tasting the 2013 barbera and 2013 touriga at a Wreckless Blenders event in mid-April, and they did not disappoint:  both are excellent examples of their respective varietals.  The 2013 follows a sold-out 2012 barbera also made from our grapes by WB, whereas the 2013 touriga is WB’s first effort with this wonderfully aromatic Portugese varietal.  Both wines are available for sale directly from Wreckless Blenders; get them while you can!

Our 3rd Annual Shaker Ridge Home Winemaker competition remains open to entries for the 2015 judging season.  In short, we are offering 250 lbs of our winegrapes to the best homemade wine made with our grapes based on results in selected, reputable public wine competitions such as the El Dorado County Fair, the Amador County Fair, the Orange County Fair, the California State Fair, and the Sacramento Home Winemakers June Jubilee.  Critical to the entry is informing us, prior to judging of the respective  competition, of entries made at least 85% with our grapes.  Please see our previous (March) post for full competition rules and details.

In light of the drought, we have decided to idle–which in this case means not irrigate and not harvest fruit (the grapevine pretty much does what it wants…) from Block 1 of our barbera.  Block 2 will be brought along but not committed to any clients until we are confident that we will be able to irrigate it adequately.  Nevertheless, we still have ~2.5 tons of barbera that we are definitely cultivating and that is still available for sale.  Waitlists are available for our primitivo and touriga.

The winter that wasn’t in the Sierra Foothills is now officially over with today’s spring equinox.  A variation on the famous Mark Twain quote about San Francisco might read: “The hottest summer I ever spent was winter in El Dorado.”  Already the distant Sierra snow caps show the mottled appearance of partially melted snow that one would normally expect to see in late May or early June.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that we can’t still get a rogue freezing night in March or April that would wreak havoc on young grape shoots, and that in fact is the major threat going forward.

Bud burst came early in the vineyard as expected, with one of our early birds, tinta cao, pushing on March 10, a full week ahead of last year (itself an early year).  Our touriga and other Portugese varietals, apart from souzao which always pushes later, were also about a week earlier than last year.  Our barbera–we think because of our intentional late pruning thereof and not due to any Irish heritage of the vines–reached generalized budburst on exactly the same day as last year:  March 17. The primitivo has not pushed yet, but this is consistent with a timing that is usually 1-2 weeks later than our barbera.  All things being equal, this early trend at bud burst would suggest harvest no later than last year, and potentially a bit earlier for some varietals.  So, particularly for our primitivo buyers, don’t make any travel plans for Labor Day!

We managed to complete winter pruning, get our weeds sprays down, mulch the pruned canes, and complete a round of mowing right before budburst in most of the vineyard. This is a particularly pleasant time in the vineyard with warm but not scorching spring days, green grass, and mostly only the pruned older wood showing on the vines.  But this is a brief period which will quickly give way to abundant new shoot growth in the vines and rapid growth of grass and cover crop between the rows, followed of course by the real heat.

We are pleased to announce the availability of the 2012 touriga from Bumgarner Wines in Camino, CA that was made with Shaker Ridge grapes from that superb vintage.  Winemaker Brian Bumgarner has produced a truly elegant example of a dry touriga wine that showcases the lovely fruit, aroma, color, and structure of this Portugese varietal.  We highly recommend that you taste a beautifully crafted example of this exquisite varietal wine while it’s still available for sale.

Homemade Wine Competition

We are also pleased to announce our 3rd Annual Shaker Ridge Homemade Wine Competition to encourage formal judging and award excellence in wines made from our grapes.  The grand (and only…) prize will be 250 lbs of free wine grapes from our “Grapes Available” list. This year, we only have barbera still available for sale, but the prize could be used in a future vintage where additional choices may be available.

Entry rules are as follows:

• The wine must be made at least 85% from grapes grown at Shaker Ridge Vineyard from vintage 2011, 2012, 2013, or 2014
• You must contact us, in writing (email is fine), ahead of judging for a given competition to let us know that you have entered a wine of type X, vintage Y from our grapes.  We will confirm that your entry is or is not valid for our competition based on our sales records.  There is no cost to enter, and no obligation for future purchases.
• 2015 home winemaker competitions results considered:  El Dorado County Fair, Amador County Fair, Orange County Fair, California State Fair, and Sacramento Home Winemakers June Jubilee.  Additional 2015 public, blinded competitions will be considered with advance agreement from Shaker Ridge, provided that results will be known by August 1, 2015.  Unfortunately, for the purposes of this competition, we cannot consider past results with the above vintages, only upcoming (prospective) entries.
• Wines winning our competition previously are not eligible for winning again.
• Appreciating the subjectivity in wine judging, we will consider the best outcome for a  given wine unless two or more wines with the same best outcome have been entered multiple times.  In the latter case, we will consider the best average outcome.  Ranking of outcomes is: double gold>gold>silver>bronze>honorable mention, with acceptable competitions given equal weight for such designations.  Tie breakers would include additional distinctions, eg Best of Show, Best of Class.   If the above criteria don’t yield a single winner, we may request a taste-off to designate the grand prize winner.
• Entrants agree that we can choose to post the results–good, bad, or indifferent–including winemaker, wine, competition, and result, on this website.  We will use your initials if you prefer relative anonymity and if you let us know this at the time you contact us with your entry.  Otherwise, your full name will be used.

Good luck!

“Winter” pruning continues at full speed, with every hint from nature indicating that it will be another early budburst, perhaps historically early.  But it’s been anything but winter-like in this part of the Sierra Foothills, with a continuous string of sunny days since about Feb. 10 and afternoon highs routinely in the upper 60s and often in the low-to-mid 70s.  At first we were honestly a little disgusted with the weather, as we actually WANTED winter–you know:  cold, wet, maybe some clouds.  Such weather would be good for keeping grapes dormant, replenishing soil moisture, and getting adequate chilling hours for other fruit.  But as the reports continued to filter in about several feet of snow in New England and bouts of bitter cold on the East Coast, and as driving just 15 miles to the west would bring us under a dense, chilly valley fog until mid-day over this same period, we ultimately concluded that we didn’t have it so bad!  In fact, it was superb outdoor working weather for the dozens and dozens of hours required for winter pruning, which so far has been completed in our Quinta and non-Quinta blocks of Portugese varietals and our primitivo (see recent Vineyard Gallery posts).

It should be noted that we did receive a 4-day period of intermittent rain in early February that dumped an impressive 5 inches of rain at Shaker Ridge.  This was much-appreciated, as we are still in the middle of a drought, and January was reportedly the driest ever in the recorded history of California.  But it was a warm rain, which means that very little was added to the Sierra snowpack, though it should work fine for the purposes of our vineyard and well.  A relatively minor rain event is in the forecast for this coming weekend.  We hope that March brings some additional moisture.  The rain also brought heavy winds which managed to bend some steel posts supporting our Quinta bird netting, but it wasn’t a total loss, and repairs are underway.

Looking ahead, winter pruning will be followed in short order by mulching of the prunings, the laying down of some weed sprays within the rows, miscellaneous maintenance of vines that have pulled loose from their stakes, mowing between rows, and the beginning of multiple rounds of preventative sprays for powdery mildew, mostly of an organic nature.  In short, we will be running to keep in place.

While the early February rain was a big help, the water situation for the coming year remains in the balance pending spring rains, so we are not certain yet if we will commit to farming all of our barbera.  However, 3 tons that we already plan to farm remains available.  Also, though our waitlists for primitivo and touriga are growing, the quantities requested are small, and clients may come off the lists as they find other sources of confirmed supply.  Thus, if you are interested in a varietal on our waitlists, don’t hesitate to contact us, and you may be able to get your grapes in the end.  To make this process more transparent for our clients, we now publish our waitlists, in an anonymous fashion, concurrent with our grape availability updates (see recent Grape Availability post).  Clients will be assigned a letter code so that they can recognize themselves on the lists.

We are looking forward to the 2014 wine competitions, as the 2013 and 2014 cohorts in the cellar seem particularly promising, and we hope the same is true for our clients.  We will again be offering a competition for best homemade wine made from Shaker Ridge grapes, details to follow in a future post.