Editor's note: I've convinced my hubby to be an occasional guest blogger to tell you about what is happening in the vineyard each month! Welcome Johnnie ;-D Now you'll know about Birdland Vineyards as well as Birdland Creations!
Winter time, well really the time after harvest and before pruning is the quietest time of the year for grape growers as the vines are dormant and there is very little to do, particularly in northern california as this is also the rainy season. The vines can survive frost and wet and even the gophers seem to be quiet, perhaps as their holes and tunnels get full of water when it rains hard.
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| New grafted Godello vines in May 2010 |
Last year we decided to do an experiment with 2 winemakers by grafting to our rootstock a Spanish white grape varietal called Godello. We tried it out with about 300 vines and although we know that there were a few that didn't take the big test will come after we prune when we find out which of the canes from last year produce buds. Hopefully we shall get a good percentage that survived and with luck produce enough grapes for us to make some wine to try out.
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| Godello grafted vines February 2011 |
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5 comments:
Great, i love wine, so now i can learn about the growing of the grapes.
i have 2 questions
1. how big is your land to grow the grapes?
2. how many botlles do you have each year?
sorry, my english is not good enough to ask it the proper way, hope you understand what i mean:)
So glad you've decided to be a guest blogger, John!
It's so much fun! Who knows you might be starting your own blog soon! It happened to us! We're excited to hear about the Godello grafted vines. Hopefully, they'll provide a wonderful new varietal for Birdland! Bonne chance!
Thanks for your questions Riet.
We have 7.5 acres of land planted with just over 5000 vines and from all the merlot vines we get enough wine to make nearly 1000 cases or 12,000 bottles. We do of course, sell the grapes to a winery, so we aren't drinking all that!!
John
Thanks for the comments guys.
It's only taken about 5 years for Ruth to get me to write anything so it could be a long time before my own blog comes out.
We are hoping the Godello works out and I'll let you know.
John
thanks john for answering that quick, hope we hear more from you in the future:)
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