June has been payback time after an exceptionally pleasant May weather-wise.  It can be described in 3 words:  sunny, hot, and dry.  Following an isolated rain event on June 10  that clearly capped the “rainy season”, we have consistently been in the 90s to low 100s in temperatures, with no relief in sight.  We can hardly expect less for July and August, so the key will be spending as little time as possible in the upper 90’s/100s.

In the vineyard, we are enjoying a slight lull before more handwork resumes.  The weeds between rows have at last exhausted surface water and won’t grow back now after 3 rounds of cutting.  The vines are looking healthy and squarely focused now on berry development.  After getting some warning signals from our well, we are altering our irrigation pattern to maximize irrigation efficiency.  Going forward, we will only be watering at night when evaporation will be less.  Limiting irrigation to night will have the effect of drawing from our well more gradually, giving it time to recharge.  This will result in less “deep” irrigation than we would like, but it’s what we need to do to get through the season.

The next major operation will be fruit dropping, which will need to be timed to maximize impact and minimize sunburn, and yet as soon as practical following the last powdery mildew prevention spray so that we can then deploy bird netting.  If bird (and skunk, and raccoon, and squirrel!) pressure on our other fruit is any indication, we’ll want to get those nets on early to protect the grapes.

Fruit set looks decent overall, with what looks like plenty of crop in the barbera, and lighter but adequate crop in the primitivo due to “shatter” (loss of berries after fruit set) that is typical and variable year-to-year in primitivo.  The fruit load in the Portugese varietals look about average.  We’ll adjust crop to where we want it with fruit dropping in a few weeks.

Wine judging season, driven primarily by the State Fair this year for us on the commercial side, has yielded some big winners.  Though not identified with vineyard designated bottlings, a barbera and a touriga wine made with our fruit earned high honors at the California State Fair.  The 2013 El Dorado barbera from Westwood Family Cellars took a gold, best of class of region.  This means that, in the opinion of the judges, it was the best barbera from the Sierra Foothills region (encompassing El Dorado, Amador, Calveras, and several other counties) at the State Fair this year.  Considering that Amador and El Dorado counties have established themselves as the source of much-and we believe some of the finest-varietal barbera in the state, this is quite an achievement.  Wreckless Blenders’ 2013 barbera, also made with our fruit, captured a solid silver medal in the same competition.

We were equally excited to see that Wreckless Blenders’ 2013 touriga–made from our grapes and blended with a little barbera also from our vineyard–took a gold medal, best of class of region, at the State Fair.  This is the same wine that we blogged about enthusiastically after tasting it a couple months ago.  The varied microclimate, soil, and terrain of our region support quite a variety of excellent miscellaneous varietals, so best of class in a category of miscellaneous red varietal blends is a gratifying result for a varietal that we particularly favor here at Shaker Ridge.  This wonderful touriga is currently available for sale directly from Wreckless Blenders.

Finally, in our 3rd Annual Home Winemaker competition, we can’t yet declare a winner, but we have an entrant with a commanding lead at this point.  Terry Piazza-Perham’s 2013 touriga wine captured a double gold at the Sacramento Home Winemakers 2015 Jubilee competition, one of only a handful of double golds awarded there.  This puts her in a clear lead over a pair of 2013 primitivos, one from Tom Montgomery and one from Steve Barrett, which earned respectable bronze medals in the same competition.  While entries are still possible per our contest rules, judging has already occurred in a number of the regional wine competitions, and the double gold should prove difficult to top (would require further distinction like best of class or show…).

We expect to be able to update our barbera availability next month with the water availability situation hopefully more clear at that point.  We hope to be able to confirm availability for some on our waiting list and may have additional fruit to offer.

May 2015 has been an astoundingly beautiful month in El Dorado, with generally mild weather and enough cloudy days to delay the inevitable browning out of the hillsides and postpone the need for irrigation in the vineyard.  We finally did see the very earliest indications of water stress in our vines and completed a full cycle of irrigation this past week.  However, the way things had been going in late winter/early spring, we were expecting this to begin much sooner, so this was a pleasant surprise.

The vines are now fully grown and looking fantastic.  We have completed shoot-thinning on a vineyard-wide basis, finishing with the block of barbera with the deepest soil for which the relative delay in thinning should have helped sap some of their natural vigor.  We are seeing no signs of powdery mildew despite excellent conditions for the same, no doubt due to our regular preventative spraying regimen, which so far this season has been with all organic materials.

Bloom is pretty much wrapped up in the barbera and primitivo vineyards now, and we also did a second round of suckering of lower shoots vineyard-wide while repairing and firing up the irrigation system for the season.  We have also tucked shoots in the Quinta, our only trellised block of vines.  It is too early to say how fruit set went for certain, but based on the initial appearance of the berries and the generally fair weather during bloom, we anticipate no problems.

We are now officially sold out of all of our varietals for the 2015 season, though we are still taking wait-list requests for our main three varietals:  barbera, primitivo, and touriga in case there is a slight excess of available fruit. The barbera is most likely to have significant quantities of fruit later available, as we are still holding back posting the production of two blocks of our barbera due to the drought:  one that we expect we will ultimately have to sell and one that we doubt that we will have to sell.  We will offer this fruit on a first-come, first-served basis from our waitlist that we post regularly in conjunction with our “Current Grape Availability” postings.

We are still accepting entries for our 3rd annual Shaker Ridge Home Winemaker competition.  Entry in our competition is free and open to anyone who has a wine made at least 85% with our grapes in vintages 2011 onward who enters a wine in certain acceptable blinded, public competitions thru Aug. 1 and who contacts us in advance of judging of that competition to confirm that they want their wine included.  We would need to know the competition you are entering, the vintage of the wine, and the varietal(s) purchased from us.  First prize–for best outcome in acceptable competitions–is 250 lbs of grapes of our grapes.  Please see our March “Vineyard Diary” blog for full competition details (http://www.shakerridgevineyard.com/2015/03/20/vineyard-diary-3-20-15/).  At present, we have only one entry for the competition, so you have an excellent chance of winning the grand prize!  Sacramento Home Winemakers:  the 2015 SHW Jubilee competiton qualifies, so please e-mail us by June 12, 2015 if you have entered a wine made with our grapes in that competition and would like to be considered for our prize.

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.

Happy New Year!

We began winter pruning operations yesterday, as it became increasingly difficult to argue that it was too cold, too wet, or too anything but time to get back to work.  In fact, we had a great break in vineyard chores after the early conclusion of last year’s harvest.

Though December was predictably cold and wet, January has been anything but.  The local weather broadcasters in the Bay area were using the “f” word –“flooding”–for a few days there in December after a welcome stretch of repeated rainstorms, but that now seems like ancient history.  In El Dorado, it hasn’t rained since Christmas Eve, so despite recording an impressive (for us) 14.2 inches of rainfall on the property from late September through Dec. 24, we once again find ourselves wondering about groundwater supplies for the coming vintage.  As we did last year, we we will delay posting availability of our largest water hog among the varietals, barbera, until we know we have the water to farm it (we are on a well).  We don’t know how it will play out–many potentially wet months are ahead–but we do know that if we don’t get good rainfal soon, we won’t be farming all of our barbera:  it’s clear we would run out of water.

We are pleased to post our availability and pricing at the end of January as per our custom.  Unfortunately, apart from a few tons of barbera, we can only offer waitlist options for our other main varietals, as we are completely sold out of the others out of the gates. We offer our repeat commercial clients first refusal on fruit, and we are excited to have a new client interested in making port-style wine from our Quinta fruit.  However, if you wanted primitivo or touriga, it is possible that some would become available–crop estimation is not an exact science–and we would encourage you to query us early to get on the top of our waitlists.

Nature has not played her hand yet in terms of bud burst timing, but after a couple of early seasons and in the face of a winter that seems to have come and gone already in December, we’d be betting on three in a row at this point.  We’d love to yet use the sledding course that we designed on the front slope of our property (outside vineyard) after an historic 9-inch snowfall several years ago, but there hasn’t been a repeat since, and we’re now not betting on it for this “winter”, either.

The 2014 vineyard year at Shaker Ridge is coming to a rapid close, with a final small harvest of touriga on Sept. 24 to be the finale.  Nothing about the weather was able to change the course of an “early” year beginning with early budburst in March, as it proved to be a relentlessly hot Foothills summer.  We did get some relief in August at least from the triple-digit runs, as it stayed predominantly in the low to mid-90’s (daytime highs) and about 30 degrees cooler at night.  We only recently revisited the 100’s again in a string of days in mid-September, fortunately after the vast majority of our fruit was harvested.  It is extremely dry here at this time of year, as there is little in the way of natural moisture to provide humidity and of course no rain, and this together with even a little breeze can dehydrate grapes, particularly a thin-skinned variety like barbera.  So, though the home stretch was not the endless string of perfect low-90 degree days that we saw in the widely acclaimed 2012 vintage, it did appear to us to be another very good vintage with no difficulty fully ripening fruit.

In 2014, we were pleased to provide wine grapes to 5 commercial wineries and about 30 home winemakers.  Continuing the trend of recent years, fully 95% of our fruit went outside of El Dorado County, mainly to other counties in Northern California and a little to clients in Nevada.  The economics of this trend is straightforward:  the premium wine grapes of El Dorado are a good value proposition for wineries and serious winemakers outside the area, and they are willing and able to pay more to access them than in-county interests.

As always, we were happy to keep a healthy number of home winemakers in the mix, and we always enjoy their enthusiasm and reliability.  Particularly noteworthy in this regard, the harvest of our “Quinta” field of Portugese varietals historically early on September 13 was a big success and we believe provided top-quality wine grapes (see recent vineyard gallery posting for some pictures) to 12 home winemaker “shareholders”, including ourselves.  The shareholders joined us for a walk of the Quinta and discussion a few weeks before harvest, and we expect to see most of their “shares” turned into some outstanding port-style wines.  We’re pretty sure there was a not-so-stealth but non-paying 13th shareholder:  a black bear that visits us regularly in August and September at night, scrunching down the vineyard fence in a few places and stripping grape clusters.  However, we find the bear to be less wasteful of grapes (usually stripping whole clusters) than birds, and we couldn’t knock his/her fine taste, exclusively going for our personal favorite of the Quinta grapes, touriga nacional.

Our domestic well threw us many hints that it was at its limits in the late summer period, though we were, in the end, able to carry our whole vineyard.  However, beyond a doubt, if we do not get solid rainfall this winter, we will choose not to cultivate part of our vineyard next year to conserve water for irrigation of the balance.  We hope, as just about everyone does, that the drought will loosen its grip in California beginning in a few weeks.  The harvest–including pre-harvest activities like regular grape chemistry sampling and an ever-increasing deployment of bird netting–came so early this year that there was no opportunity for a pre-harvest escape to a cool coastal climate.  As such, we are particularly looking forward to the return of some clouds and moisture.  At the moment, the only clouds in sight are smoke-induced clouds from the massive and growing “King Fire” to our northeast.

We thank all of our clients for their support this year and truly hope to see some superb wines from the 2014 grapes.  We expect to post pricing and availability of 2015 vintage grapes by the end of January, though earlier commitments will be considered on a case-by-case basis.  We know our winemakers’ work has just begun, but we are looking forward to our off-season, rain, and the pause that refreshes…

“Every man at first sets forth the good wine, and when they have drunk freely, then that which is poorer.  But thou hast kept the good wine until now.” -John 2: 10

For those who like a hot Foothills summer, you are getting your wish.  For those of us who have to work outside in these conditions, we are strictly on the early morning and early evening routine.  Grapevines don’t enjoy our mobility, so they stick it out as best they can through the mid-day heat, turning their leaf blades more vertical to intercept less sun, closing stomata, and drawing what moisture they can–likely from the most recent irrigation– through their roots.  July was classically hot here in the Foothills, and we are in our 4th stretch of the growing season with temperatures in the triple digits.  We are hoping for a more moderate August as we coast toward harvest.

The season is rapidly progressing toward an early finale—we would expect an action-packed September and conclusion by early October.  Veraison is well under way for all of our varietals, with the exception of souzao which is in the earliest stages.  Our “Quinta” vineyard, the harvest of which will be divided up by Quinta “shareholders” on one fine day, likely in late September, is now 100% netted with excess fruit dropped.  We dropped approximately half the fruit in our tempranillo, tinta cao, and tinta amarela blocks, going for maximal concentration and ripeness in the remainder for our shareholders who are mainly looking to make world-class port style wines. The all-important touriga nacional component set relatively small clusters this year, so only a little fruit dropping was necessary, and the souzao remains untouched at this point.

As noted before, the fruit set in the primitivo was irregular, with lots of smaller, loose clusters, but we nevertheless dropped fruit to about 1 cluster/cane to maximize concentration and better synchronize ripening.  Our job now is to deploy bird netting, as the birds will love what remains.  The primitivo is sold out, but we will accept wait lists requests on a first come, first-served basis.

The barbera is coming along nicely, with the vines naturally in reasonable balance due to lighter clusters than average.  However, we are in the midst of fruit dropping to remove excess clusters in the vines that have them, with this operation already completed in Block 4, and the remainder expected within the week.  Our water supply (well) is showing some signs of being on the edge, so it remains unclear whether we will able to farm Block 1 to completion this year, which would contribute about 2 more tons to our “Grapes Available”. As it stands (ie, without Block 1), we have approximately 2.25 tons of barbera still available for sale from the remaining blocks.

Our 2014 touriga from our non-Quinta block should be outstanding, as we completed almost 2 weeks ago a definitive round of fruit dropping to 1 cluster/cane.  We recently presented at the El Dorado Wine Grape Association the results of an experiment we conducted in 2013 comparing different fruit-dropping practices in this very touriga block, and our practices this year are a direct result of that study (and a few years of experience).  We anticipate that this will be an outstanding vintage, and we seriously doubt you will find better value for this varietal given the concentration we expect to achieve.  If you have never tasted touriga, which makes a dark, fruity, aromatic wine with a firm backbone, we highly recommend it. We have approximately 1.3 tons left for reservation on a first-come, first-served basis.

We would like to congratulate John La Grou as the winner of our 2014 Shaker Ridge Home Winemaker Competition.  John produced an outstanding primitivo from our 2012 vintage that secured the victory with a gold medal at the relatively large and prestigious Orange County Fair.  He also had a 2011 primitivo made with our grapes that notched a silver medal.  John made use of a multiple-entry strategy, submitting wines to a number of competitions across the state, allowing us (in the absence of a gold from another entrant) to consider his best showing from the multiple entries, which just happened to be from one of the premier home winemaker competitions anywhere.  Congratulations to John, who will get 250 lbs of free wine grapes from our available stocks in 2014 or 2015.

Lastly, we’re happy to be here at all, as a major regional fire dubbed the “Sand Fire” (after nearby Sand Ridge road, we presume) scorched parts of El Dorado and Amador counties near their common border and came within a couple miles of our vineyard this past weekend.  Cal Fire and other responding firefighters, with considerable aerial support, were able to stop the spread of the fire in difficult terrain and in already hot conditions, but not before it burned almost 4000 acres.  We were inconvenienced by road closures but did not have to be evacuated, and we were certainly more fortunate than some who lost structures or had acreage burned in the direct path of this fire.  We thank the many who expressed concern and especially the fire crews who worked tirelessly to protect area residents and property.  Last we heard, and fairly remarkably, there was no loss of life.

The 2014 vintage is moving right along. Grape clusters are fully formed and rapidly increasing in size.  Fruit set appears variable in the primitivo, with some normal-looking clusters and some with lighter sets and variable berry sizes.  Fruit set in other varietals looks unremarkable.  We are not seeing any powdery mildew pressure.

The weather has been exactly as expected, with not a drop of rain and mostly sunny skies.  We have enjoyed a higher than normal period of days in the 80s or even the upper 70s for our region for this time of year, making for very pleasant working conditions.  However, we had a few days of low triple digits in early June, and we’ll be climbing into the upper 90’s again this week.  We hope that these periods remain few and far between, but we wouldn’t bet on it.

We have begun irrigating regularly, but have been able to water at less than maximum rate thanks to generally moderate heat.  We started to see some dry tendrils following the big early June heat wave. The vines have put on a fair amount of growth in the form of lateral arms, but they remain green and healthy at this point.  The weeds such as horsetail that tend to come up at this time of year immediately adjacent to the vine rows are off to an early start and growing in earnest; we may need to do a lot of manual pulling to keep them from competing with the vines for what will likely be precious late summer water.

Our 2nd annual competition to recognize the best home winemaker wines made with our grapes is heating up, with the results of a couple major competitions still pending. With the the Amador County Fair judging complete but results not posted, and the Sacramento Home Winemakers June Jubilee judging set to go in about a week, the updated standings are as follows:

Winemaker Initials                           Wine                          Top Medal

JL                                                     2012 primitivo                     gold

JL                                                     2011 primitivo                     silver

JDP                                                  2011 port style                   bronze

NG                                                    2012 touriga                      bronze

This means that someone will need at least a gold to force us to look at our tiebreaker criteria, and a double-gold would be needed to grab a commanding lead.  Entries are still accepted up to the day before judging of a given competition by contacting us to confirm eligibility.  The grand prize is 250 lb of free wine grapes (2014 or 2015 vintages).

The 2014 growing season is progressing extremely well at Shaker Ridge.  An unexpectedly generous bolus of nearly 2 inches of rain on April 25 recharged the surface soils that were already going dry, postponing the need for irrigation in the vineyard and elsewhere.  It did, unfortunately, also breath new life into weeds and grasses between vineyard rows that were already setting seed and prepared to pack it in for the year, but it would be rare for us to get away with a single round of mowing.  We gladly took the additional rain.  Yesterday, we got we would expect to be the last rain until fall: some passing, almost East Coast-style late afternoon thundershowers.  Our soil water measurements had just told us that it was time to start irrigating, which we began in a block of the primitivo.

The vineyard is in full “bloom”–the small, non-showy flower clusters that mark the beginning of fruit formation.  We first noticed this on the back hilltop of the primitivo about 2 weeks ago, but pretty much the entire vineyard was in bloom by May 16.  This is right about the same time as last year and keeps us on track for another early-ish year on harvest.

Vine growth has been vigorous, and we just finished a massive shoot-thinning (“suckering”) operation in the entire vineyard, probably the earliest that we’ve every completed this critical step.  Shoot thinning removes unwanted shoots or canes–typically well more than the number retained–which increases sunlight penetration and air circulation around the future fruit clusters on the remaining ones.  An added benefit, especially important in our third straight drought year, is to dramatically decrease the overall surface area of leaves, which should help conserve water that would be lost through transpiration.

We are seeing no evidence of powdery mildew pressure, but continue regular treatments to prevent this, as weather conditions remain ideal for its formation.  We just completed our second (and we hope last) round of vineyard mowing, and we’ll be monitoring soil water carefully to time irrigation on an as-needed basis.  Right now, we’re off to a picture-perfect start for 2014 as we look toward fruit growth and the hot summer.

In our second annual competition to recognize the best homemade wines made with our grapes by home winemaker clients, several medals have been won and we have a leader, but major competitions remain and all it would take is a gold medal to improve upon the current entries.  The leader board looks as follows:

Winemaker Initials                         Wine                            Highest Award

JL                                                  primitivo                        silver

JDP                                               port-style                      bronze

NG                                                 touriga                         bronze

We hope for additional entrants (free, see our April Diary post for details) with the Amador County Fair, Orange County Fair, and Sacramento Home Winemakers June Jubilee competitions still to come.  The grand prize is 250 lbs of our wine grapes (2014 or 2015 vintage).

We have updated our “Current Grape Availability” to reflect what we believe will be a harvest window no later, and quite possibly earlier, than last year.  A little bit (500 lbs) of 2014 primitivo and about a ton and a half each of barbera and touriga nacional remain available for sale.