Vineyard & Winery Blog 2007

[Raoul Duke]

Thanks, Raoul!  I'm glad you were impressed with the 2005 Cujo Zinfandel.  We've been producing that blend for 10 years--this release has a high percentage of Benito Dusi 80-year-old vine fruit in it.

Twelve hundred trees is a large "grove."  Do you sell some to Pasolivo?  Where do you market your fruit?  Will the olive trees recover from the freezing temperatures that have damaged our citrus crops so heavily?

Ten minutes ago, a gorgeous rainbow busted loose over the vineyard.  The sun was shining, but we have been blessed with sporadic and colorful drizzles off and on all day.  You can't easily see the vineyard from the house for the trees, but if you squint, you will see a few rows of syrah down the hill, and the roof of our wine barn.  The town of Paso Robles proper lies 15 miles directly behind the rainbow. 

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Everyone seems to want that Dusi bros. fruit and some use a small %age of it. That's all the head pruned zin, isn't it? Whatever, the 05 is a superior product. I liked both the Opolo zins, but a little to much fruit and not enough spice for my liking, but pretty tasty. Robert Hall had a surprising zin, the first from them that I tasted. Gary Eberle is on the mark, too, but like I said my friends and I all like the Cujo. My neighbor produces some fruit, petite verdot, for Opolo.

The oil has been produced for two years, the first two years, with low yields due to youth and weather. The 05 garnered a bronze at the LA County fair so I'm doing something right. Sold at We Olive as well, plus a lot to the Portland farmers market in Orygun.

[Rebel Rose]

Everyone seems to want that Dusi bros. fruit and some use a small %age of it.  That's all the head pruned zin, isn't it? 

It's all head pruned, 2 of the 3 sections are planted from the original cuttings. The Dusi Ranch, first featured by Ridge in the 1970's--Ridge was also the first extra-terrestial winery to declare 'Paso Robles' on a wine label--is now comprised of three family plots.

Benito Dusi still lives in the house he grew up in, in the middle of the 80 year old vineyard planted by his parents, Sylvester and Caterina. Across Highway 101 lies an adjacent vineyard owned by his brother Dante. But in the 1960s, when zinfandel had to be trucked to San Francisco on a 2-lane highway for a piddling amount per ton, Dante became discouraged and ripped out his vines--except for 2 rows of vines which are currently 60 years old. In the family home there is an oil portrait hanging over the piano of the original vineyard as it existed in the 1950s. Fifteen years ago Dante's son Michael (Beni's nephew), replanted Dante Dusi's vineyard, and also planted his own acreage, contributing more vineyard land to Dusi Ranch.

So now "Dusi Ranch" consists of:

Benito Dusi (80 year old vines)

Dante Dusi (15 yo vines, plus a small amt. of 60 yo)

Michael Dusi (15 yo vines)

Ridge purchases the lion's share of Benito Dusi grapes. All Dusi Ranch fruit is dryfarmed and headtrained, planted from original cuttings and all high quality.

Until 2005, Beni also sold to Kathryn Kennedy and other central coast producers, but as of '05 only Ridge and Dover Canyon receive the old vine fruit. (Unless there is more than we can take.)

When we first began to bottle Dusi zinfandel, Dan wrote 'Benito Dusi Vineyard' on his rough draft of the label. I said, "Honey, isn't the official name Dusi Ranch?" Dan called 72-year-old Beni to clarify, and he said in his charming Italian voice, "It's my fruit, you go ahead and say 'Benito Dusi Vineyard' if you want, okay?"

[Casey Hartlip]

My Santa Rosa plum is in full bloom, I sprayed my peaches for leaf curl today, my cheeries are pretty close too. I've been doing a bunch of winemaking stuff the past week and will go for a walk in the vineyard with my dogs tomorrow. I did drive through Napa and Carnernos yesterday and saw lots of buds at that 'pencil eraser' stage. They're just about ready to pop. I also saw a $hitload of vineyards yet to be pruned. I think the labor shortage that some saw at harvest has carried through the winter and skilled pruners must have been hard to find down there. My cover crop has really jumped these past couple of weeks. We're holding off on pruning our frost sensitive spots for another week or so. I'd like to see the terminal buds push before we prune those vines. It gives us another 10 days of delayed bud break, which could be the most important 10 days if we were to have a cold snap. It won't be long now kids! Hope I'm ready for my 31st harvest!

[Rebel Rose]

This week it's supposed to climb to the high 80's, low 90's. So much for our rain window!

We have yet to finish pruning the syrah, but we'll accomplish that chore immediately after bottling. The syrah is on an easterly slope, facing away from the afternoon sun, and sloping down into our creekbed, so it will be exposed to frost if we have a sudden reversion to cold April weather. The late pruning (while not exactly planned to be this late) will help to delay budbreak past our last anticipated frost dates.

The zinfandel was pruned in Februrary, and the cover crop is just starting to get leafy. In addition to our multi-purpose tractor with its handy-dandy accessories, we maintain an old riding lawnmower for mowing the cover crop, as our 14-year-old likes to earn money driving something with a motor and wheels (he's not as interested in the vineyard as he is in the concept of transportation.) He's been in charge of mowing the cover crop and mowing the walnut orchard cover crop for extra parking during festivals since he was 8.

There are no buds on the zin yet, just hard-headed, stubborn nodes.

[Rebel Rose]

I just received a link to an interesting new blog by the owners of a vineyard software management company, and a vineyard in Napa. This post in particular applies well to our activities this time of year. . .

Pruning Zen

The reason I prune every vine myself is because each cut requires a decision, and while there are many people who can make that decision as well as I can, there are very few who care as much as I do .  . .  Our 1.7 acre vineyard block has 1543 vines on it, requiring around 30 cuts per vine, or 46,000 cuts. It's a zen job, thinking, and cutting, and moving down the rows, the work taking so long that it is only after two months of spending several hours to a half day per visit that the gratification of being finished finally becomes a reality.

[Casey Hartlip]

My 84 acre vineyard has over 45,000 vines on it. That would be 1.3 million decisions. I don't think I'm capable of making that many decisions in a season! Hey Mary, I was looking at your photo above: aren't those strips sprayed a little too wide? I'm starting my strip spraying next week. We like to keep the berm vegetated all through the winter for erosion control.

[Rebel Rose]

Well, these headtrained vines are only two feet tall . . . we will have to mow the cover crop several times during spring and early summer, and by then, the vines will be trailing on the ground. So Dan sprays the zin wider than he does in the syrah, which is trellised.

[Casey Hartlip]

Boy I really don't have a good feeling how things are going these days. Things are very dry and there's not much coming in the near future. Looks like this little 'piss off' storm is gonna do just that and not really help anything. I'm hoping for a half inch to at least keep my cover crop from hitting the wall.

Lots of the native vegeation is already starting to set its seed heads that that doesn't show well for livestock fellows. I'm wondering what dry farmed grape growers will do with no real moisture in the soil if we don't get another 4-6 inches of rain.

These's still time, but the clock is tickin'!

[russ parsons]

i have been remiss in doing this publicly, but welcome aboard casey!

he's a very good guy, not such a great bocce player, but his grenache is one of the single most distinctive red wines i've had out of california. it is absolutely delicious. and unfortunately i'm not the only one who seems to think so as it is almost impossible to find.

[Casey Hartlip]

he's a very good guy, not such a great bocce player,

Russ;

Next time you come to Mendocino its gonna be horseshoes or handguns! I'll also throw a piece dead deer on the grill to go with that Grenache!

[Casey Hartlip]

My peaches and cherries are in full bloom, the santa rosa plum is past full. What else can we do to make it rain? Let's grade the road! This one is a sure thing.

I just spent about $2K in a grader, roller and water truck to take care of my poor entry road today. Its a mile-and-a-half long and was in pretty sorry shape. We were never able to grade the darn thing after last years nasty winter took a bite out of it.

Looking down the road (I mean weather wise) it looks like we might get something by about Sunday/Monday and talk of something else the Friday after that. We had a nice little 31 degree morning here today. No pumps were going in the valley this morning. I'm thinking folks are holding onto what water they have until they really have a bunch of stuff out and its a real cold frost coming.

[Rebel Rose]

I just returned from a sales trip to San Diego. Coming home, I turned off Highway 101 onto Vineyard Drive, and then onto Winery Road, which winds behind Turley's venerable old vine Pesenti Vineyard .

These old vines are about three feet high. The cover crop is robust and leafy right now, over two feet high and the grasses are starting to bloom.

I love the look of these old, gnarled vines nestled in their spring cover. Pesenti crews are starting to mow the cover crop. On the western part (closer to the tasting room) the field has a tidy haircut look, with a wild 'mohawk' around each vine.

[Casey Hartlip]

I feel frost in the air! The north wind is already up even at this hour (before 6 am) and that tells me that we're gonna have our first frost of the season. Its gonna be a windy and raw day today, but when the wind dies down at sunset it'll get cold. There's gonna a lot of deisel burned tonight with growers frost protecting.

Stay tuned.

[russ parsons]

rose, there is something about those old vineyards, isnt there? i'm sure casey knows the vineyard just east of ukiah (mcdowell valley?) where they've documented vines planted at least before 1880 (if memory serves). old head-pruned grenache and syrah, i believe. like gnarled small trees. and probably the best zinfandel i've ever tasted came from hartford court from a small 100-year-old vineyard called dina's vineyard. i'm still tracking down remnants of a 100-year-old vineyard in southern california. most people don't realize it, but at one time the biggest vineyard in the world was down here ... also the home of Pierce's Disease.

[Casey Hartlip]

It was pretty darn frosty out there this morning.

Looks like we got down to about 30 this morning. At 3:00 am is morning it was 32 with some pretty good wind, so I don't think our duration of frost was all that long. I could hear lots of pumps running in the valley at 6:00 when I walkd outside.

I'm hoping/guessing/praying that we didn't get any damage from this. Sangio is out pretty far right now. Wouldn't want to see it get nailed. Won't really know until late afternoon.

[Rebel Rose]

Very frosty here in Paso Robles as well. It's still only 34 degrees at 8 am. Brrr! Our zinfandel and syrah is not very far along, so we're not too worried . . . I'll be walking down to the zinfandel later today. Dan says we have a badger again. Several burrows. We're very pleased, as they're ferocious gopher eaters.

[Casey Hartlip]

This looks like the end of green hills in my area anyway. Dry is the word around these parts. I'm watering a young block that we planted last year today because we don't want them to stumble early in the growing cycle. Watering my vineyard in the first week of April? Will we have enough water for the whole season? I watered my olive trees yesterday too. Looks like its gonna be a LONG summer.

[Don Giovanni]

But it was 48 degrees in the wine barn, and the wines were very, very cold. This is a writing exercise which is demanding under the best of circumstances, as I have to anticipate how bottling, bottle shock, and bottle age will affect the finished flavors, and with the wines so cold I was definitely handicapped.

Mary,

I can't imagine who you are able to pull of tasting notes unless you did what you told us"cupped that wine like a little chick) IIRC. You had to warm that wine up to open it up, I could not do it with someone standing over me. Anyway good luck with the notes.

[Rebel Rose]

It was supposed to rain here today, and wine regions to the north of us are getting a little rain. I spent the day in sweats and a baseball hat, ready. But I would need a quantum rain gauge to measure the few drops that fell. My leaking garden hose threw out more precipitation than this rain storm. And now the weather forecast has been downgraded to 10%. Hopefully, we will get a half-inch or so tonight. Yesterday we planted some irises and wildflower starts along the creek by the wine barn--the soil was black and wet, but ordinarily this time of year it would be underwater.

We have already tilled the cover crop in the zinfandel under, and we are going to starting mowin' n' hoein' the syrah. More signs of badger activity in the zinfandel--I hope there will be enough water to encourage him (her?) to stay.

[Casey Hartlip]

We ended up with .40 today and at this point I'll take about anything! Looks like we could have some decent showers tonight as well. As long as it doesn't frost I'm cool with just about anything Ma Nature decides to toss our way.

Looks like I'll be hooking up the disc tomorrow and see if it'll cut the mustard. The boys are starting to sucker and there will be no shortage of work for anyone until about July.

Chickens are pumping out some nice eggs, I can hear the turkeys gobble most every morning, and my two pigs will be arriving in about a month or so. Never a dull moment on the ranch!

[Casey Hartlip]

Its 52 degrees at 10:30 in the morning, wind gusts up to about 25 mph. Feels a bit more like winter out there right now. I'm mean you REALLY don't want to be outside if you don't have to.

Looks like we have a chance for some real rainfall come Thursday-Friday. Talk is maybe 1.5". They've been wrong SO many times that I don't want to get my hopes up much, but that much rain would actually DO something.

Fingers crossed!

[Casey Hartlip]

April sure ain't a dull month!

The last few days we've seen some really cold and windy days here in central Mendocino County. We all know how dry it is too.

Yesterday morning I was driving to a seminar in Anderson Valley and while hitting the hwy 253 pass I saw a patch of snow higher on the mountain. It had to come from a passing shower that night while it was so cold. I did wake up to a 32 degree morning yesterday.

So the cold, raw wind blew all day yesterday. This is a sure sign of a frost. Last night while I was thinking about switching back and forth between and Warriors and Sharks (both winners BTW!!!) I saw that the wind had died down and the temp was already at 41. I don't have any conventional frost protection.

There is a material called Frost Shield that I've heard about for a few years now. Its a polymer that coats the shoots with a thin layer of protection and I'm told can get you 2-3 degrees of frost tollerance. Most years its so darn wet in many fields that its not an option, but this year I can get in every block. Copper is also used in Europe for other reasons but I'm told folks also use it for frost. (I'm sure Peter C can 'splain how it works).

Having bought enough of this $hit to cover about 12 acres a week ago, I decide that I'd better see if it works. I REALLY thought last night was it. I mixed a 300 gallon tank full and headed out about 8:10 last night. I was glad I'd had an early dinner and stopped at 2 margaritas. I'd already decided that the Thackrey Sangio and some of my prime Petite Sirah had some of the highest $$ value and I'd spray them.

By the end of the first tank it was 10:30 and already 34 degrees. My hands were really starting to hurt even though I was wearing leather gloves. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and I watch the new moon set. I'd checked the moving satelite around 7:00 and it looked to me that the next storm was WAY too far off shore to come in in time.

I mixed my second tank of 'faith spray' and headed out. I KNEW that this was the 'big one'. If it was 34 at 10:30 I was sure that we were gonna get down to about 27 by 5:00 am and any unprotected vineyard in the area would get nuked. My hands continued to feel like catchers mits as I tried not to tip my sprayer over in the 2000 Petite valley block that has some of our most severe terraces in it.

As I was heading back to the house, I had the feeling that it wasn't as cold as earlier. There was a hint of an east wind, but it was still quite unpleasant outdoors at 12:45. I rinsed out my spray rig, flushed out the nozzles and checked the temp after my shower...36 degrees. I looked to the north and could see only stars. I was wondering what quote I was going to give Blake Grey from the SF Chronicle about the frost of the decade, and was looking forward to seeing how Frost Shield works in these conditions when I drifted off to sleep.

Lynne was the first one up this morning and looked at the digital readout..."39 degrees" she said. I get the feeling that had I not have sprayed & prayed and sat on my ass watching those games last night that we would have lost the majority of our crop. April is a funny month.

[Casey Hartlip]

My vineyard is just now hitting rapid growth on some varietals. I have Zin shoots averaging 10", Grenache at 8", Sangio at 16", old Petite 6", young Petite 14" and Cab at 10". I can tell by the Sangio flowers that we'll be blooming in about a week or so.

I've gotta get out there again on Thursday and start the 2nd go-round of wettable sulfur. These temps in the high 70's to low 80's just screams mildew conditions. We're just about done with our first pre-bloom irrigations in the history of our vineyard. I'm hoping this will benefit my vines as the summer moves forward.

We're falling behind hand work. This happens every year at this time. The vines are just growing faster than we can cover ground. My guys are already working 51 hour weeks. I hoping to get another three men from the Wentzel vineyard (a vineyard I consult for) in another day or so. The Counoise field that was planted last year is starting to grow pretty well out of the cartons and that will take some more labor soon too.

Next order of business for me is to write up all of the contracts now that we're out of frost risk. I'm holding most of my prices at last years levels except for a couple of deals.

Its light here at 5:30 am now and I really can't sleep much past 4:30 anymore.

[Rebel Rose]

Casey, you are amazing. I hope you are getting some naps in during the afternoons.

Dan also starts his day early (not that early) and he prefers to finish his vineyard work later in the day, so he likes to take a nap mid-afternoon. Many of our friends think he's always sleeping, because they tend to stop by in the afternoon. I tell our friends that Dan keeps "Mediterranean hours."

I've been meaning to post pictures of our syrah and zin shoots, but I dropped my camera (again) so it will be a day or two before I get some shots up.

With the warm, dry spring we've been having, the weeds came on strong and we hired a small crew of three to tackle hoeing before the weeds went to seed. We asked them to just hoe around the vines, but they did an amazing and very precise job of hoeing not only around the base of the vine, but all along the vine row and out about a foot on each side in perfect strips.

We have also been seeing a lot of gopher activity, and we lost about 30 of our best vines in the center of the zinfandel vineyard, as well as some more struggling vines near the vineyard border, and yet more in the syrah.

Generally gophers are very active in the spring when they are breeding, and when the neighboring walnut orchards are tilled in late spring, that also drives gophers toward our vineyard. But gopher activity is much worse this year than in the last two years, so we purchased a whole box of gopher traps and put one of the crew to work catching the critters. He caught 20 in one day on one acre. Eight of them were huge . . . mutants with fangs . . . if I were a cat I wouldn't mess with them.

[Russell Bevan]

Greetings all,

As of May 17, things are now getting back to normal, if there is such a thing. While the vintage started early it has been cool in Sonoma and Napa and things are now about where they should be development wise. All of our vineyards look great, especially the Westerhold Vineyard that is planted to Syrah all of which is Alban One clone in Bennett Valley.

The Dry Stack Vineyard that we share with Pax, Du Mol, the owners Peter and Marie Young and others also looks great. The Estrella River Clone is really moving beautifully as is the 174. The 877 is as always behind the other clones, but we expect it. We are going to drop most of it down to one cluster per shoot earlier then years past and make sure we get it as ripe and developed as we like.

On the Napa Side the Showket Vineyard looks like it is going to have a healthy crop with yields higher then the past two vintages which are always very low because the soil is basically rocks and the occasional patch of nutrient deficient dirt. Kal Showket has already had to water so I am expecting small berries and intense flavors after a dry winter. Where as many vineyard managers push the early season water deficits, this vineyard drains so well that it is always dry even after a good watering.

At this point (and I hate saying this) everything is right where we want them to be.

All the best,

Russell Bevan

Bevan Cellars

rbevan@pacbell.net

Edited May 19, 2007 by Russell Bevan (log)