Ken Dunkley, the founder of Seawind Wines, was recently on Vin Village Radio discussing his philosophy on cool climate Pinots and Chardonnays.  You can listen to the segment here. 

Seawind is also a member of the new, and quickly growing, San Francisco Wine Association.  Definitely keep your eyes on what that group is doing.

One of our longtime clients, Peter Kitchak, recently got a nice write up in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  Check it out!

One of the most influential and uncontrollable things growers deal with is the weather. Luckily, it’s been cooperative. A result of our collective good fortune has been a significant progression of bloom from last week.

Blocks on several properties for the earlier ripening varietals are now through bloom and have completed fruit set. If the weather stays as predicted, we should have very good fruit set in 2009. Between fruit set and veraison, lay a critical period where we can affect the berry size by how we work the vines. Managing the leaf canopy and soil moisture will play key roles in the final cluster appearance and chemistry.

I am seeing good leaf color on Bordeaux varietals. Pinot Noir also looks good and we should see the Chardonnay leaves move out of the yellow phase shortly.  Syrah looks very good. Overall, the shoot length is a little short for being this close to bloom, but definitely adequate for the vine to be able to complete fruit set. I suspect we will have our desired shoot length relatively soon.  Because of the May rains, I see many varietals are now pushing laterals. Growers will need to manage their canopies to prevent them from closing in and causing too much shade in the vine’s interior. That would reduce fertility for next year and increase disease pressure. Additionally, on some varietals, having a canopy closed in may prolong the problem of methoxypyrazine, which produces vegetal character in wine.

Many vineyards that use a VSP or vertical shoot positioning system have moved the first set of moveable wires in place to train the vines and a few sites have even moved the second set of wires in place.

I am optimistic in what I’m seeing at the sites and the next few weeks will show us a lot about the vines.

Mitchell

Our very own Cindy Cosco was recently featured in the May issue of Sommelier Journal.  Many of you know Cindy as the head of our lab at Crushpad.  What you might not know is that Cindy also has her own nascent wine brand named Passagio, or "passageway" in Italiano.  Her current release is an absolutely delicious, unoaked Sonoma Chardonnay with no malo.  Its bright, refreshing and extremely well balanced.  It's also bottled with a ZORK closure.  Later this year she also plans to add a Sonoma Pinot to her portfolio.

Her wines are already available at Ferry Plaza Wine Merchants in Napa and San Francisco as well as her website passagiowines.com

Sommelier Magazine has graciously allowed our readers to access this article for free.

Bloom is just around the corner. Even though bud break was about 5-7 days later than average, we're seeing hints bloom is about to occur. Technically, bloom is when 50% of a cluster has the calyptras dropped so you can see the stamen. The number of clusters showing this condition on a vine is a factor growers take into consideration before they declare that bloom is taking place in a vineyard block. The current heat spell will certainly speed things up. The 600 degree day mark is another indicator that bloom is surfacing. The impact of temperature can not be overlooked because the time necessary to complete bloom is directly influenced by temperature. Typically, faster bloom periods result in better fruit set.

The series of recent rain storms offered mixed blessings. While the storms certainly helped replenish the upper soil profile, the flip side is that we have seen weed pressure and the threat of powdery mildew.

Overall, shoot growth looks good. I'm still seeing quite a bit of yellowish color in areas where Chardonnay & Syrah grow. However, I suspect those soils will warm up and dry out a bit more and the leaves will color up.                        

Very soon, the first set of movable wires on vertical shoot positioned vineyards will get moved upward to catch the young growth. Timing this right can be tricky. If you wait too long, the tendrils begin grabbing the adjacent shoots and the canopy becomes tangled. But, if you act too soon, you don't get enough shoots above the wires. Nothing is as simple as it seems. Then again, if high-end growing was simple, vineyard managers could find themselves on a list of endangered species.

Mother Nature is displaying bi-polar tendencies. After having gone back to winter for an additional 2-4 inches of rain and much cooler temperatures in the North Coast, she’s bounced back into spring with a string of beautiful days with temps hovering between 65 and 70 degrees.

Throughout the Central Coast vineyards, we are seeing the first evidence of bloom. This is not a complete surprise, since we are presently around 600 “degree-days” for Chardonnay. Degree-days are a measure of the heat units above 50 degrees F during the 8-month stretch between March 1st and October 31st. Last week’s cooler temperatures slowed down vine growth a bit, but the current heat is putting us back on track.

The threat of powdery mildew will keep growers on their toes over the next few days. Thankfully, the decision making process for when to spray for powdery mildew has become quite sophisticated. A mildew expert at UC Davis designed a model that determines the level of risk for any given 24-hour period. Spore release, temperature, relative humidity and a host of other measures are considered in the model, which can be monitored by most vineyard weather stations. The vineyard manager simply accesses the program from their computer when reviewing weather data and verifies the spray interval or makes changes depending on the threat level, wind and other factors. It’s integrated pest management in action.

Green pruning, also known as suckering, is in full swing and clusters are starting to elongate on grape varietals that develop earlier. While walking through Chardonnay blocks, I’ve seen many of the clones have small clusters so far. The overall cluster number looks good, with lots of 2 cluster shoots and some 1 cluster shoots. Growth will need to perk up a bit to be at optimum length by bloom. However, we will be all right if the weather cooperates. Keep your fingers crossed!

After green pruning, it’s common for some fertilization to take place. Nutrients can be applied directly to the soil, but are often incorporated through an irrigation system or by foliar feeding (spraying). Deciding which nutrients are needed is typically based on analysis of the soil, leaf petiole analysis or visual symptoms.

Mitchell Klug