With lots of help from friends and family we completed the main arch structure for the winery building a few weeks ago. The back wall is about 50% complete now but we were forced to take a break and tend to pressing vineyard tasks.
All the riesling was pushing buds so it is now tied off and ready to go. The Riesling seems to be the most suited to the vineyard site and it looks very healthy. We went through and picked the best two canes on each plant, carefully bent them over the trellis wire and tied them off. This spreads the fruit load horizontally along the wires ready to grow up. Most of the Gewurztraminer is also tied off now but it is fairly sluggish to get going. We found some trunk disease in a few of the Gewurztraminer and Merlot plants that we will have to moniter closely over the next couple of years. Having seen the success of the Riesling, we will likely look to replant the Gewurztraminer with more riesling in years to come.
The Merlot is now coming out quite nicely as well. With the different pruning style used there, we only have to go through and tie of a few of the vines and train some new spurs where needed.
I hooked up the flail mower to the tractor a couple of weeks ago and mowed the whole vineyard for the first time. It's a pretty violent method of grooming between the rows but with all the rocks on our property a flail mower is the only tool that will do the job effectively. It was interesting learning to back the tractor down the vineyard after mowing some of the rows. With the 6ft extra length on the back it was a bit tricky. We eliminated the tractor turn around space at the top end of some of the rows when we put up the winery building so for now it is necessary.
After mowing, Amy and I hand pulled any weeds that were amongst the vines or in areas where we are planting.
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