August 10, 2021
It’s been eight months since my last post. And to think I was planning on putting something out every week. I was planning on painting the inside of the vineyard cabin all Mexican bohemian. I was thinking we would BBQ more; blog more, maybe even do a YouTube channel about this retired couple trying to save an old vineyard. Hardy Har Har.
The work at the vineyard has been thrilling, cold, spiritual, dusty, hot, dirt red, desert, like skeletons and then in a heartbeat like a jungle, stickers and wind, and wind, and wind, nights watching the weather like storm chasers, nail biting cold and boiling hot test from God Almighty, but most of all it has been hard– hard work, very hard work. Did I say hard work?
In December we started cleaning off trunks. Yesterday, Aug. 9, we were still cleaning off trunks. 
In the meantime, we learned how to prune or at this point, at least we think we did. Anyway, we watched a gazillion videos and tried to apply them to our vines. It was pretty hard to find a cohesive vision on reviving an old and somewhat neglected vineyard, but we pretty much landed on four ways to save the vineyards Heritage vines and we kinda tried them out this year. So far so good.
Pruning time is a very beautiful time in the vineyard. From January to April, the vine reveals it’s skeletal and magical structure. How it needs your partnership to make a great wine
We learned how to sucker or de-sucker or just plain continuing to clean off trunks. Cleaning off trunks pretty much requires you to touch your toes and stay there for a minute or two or three, pulling and cutting vines, stand up, move over about four feet and repeat the whole lean over and touch your toes…. and so on. We have approx. 20,000 vines in the vineyard. We hired all the help we could.
Harvest is around the corner. We are harvesting our Chenin Blanc, Savignon Blanc, Semillon, Mourvedre and Carignan. We hopefully set up our Sangiovese and Viognier for a harvest next year.
…. I would give a special thanks to our Vineyard Consultant, Texas Wine Company, our neighbor, and our tireless workers.
Raising my wine glass –Here’s to a super successful harvest.
