The 16′ harvest went smooth with pleasant weather and no hiccups. Yields were back to a more normal level, around 3 tons per acre. ’14 and ’15 were both huge years leaving winery’s scrambling to find space for for all the fruit. All in all 2016 was good vintage for us and we anticipate some great wines.
We had good weather just after harvest, which was nice for planting winter cover crops. This year we planted Crimson clover as well as Hairy Vetch.
The cold weather in December hardened off the vines and aloud us to begin pruning. The hard freeze in early January has let us get into the vineyard with the tractor to chop brush. As long as the temperature doesn’t get into single digits for extended periods the vines should be fine.
We’re excited to have four acres of Chardonnay coming into production this year. Altogether that will put us just under 14 acres of producing Chard. For ’18 we will have 3 more acres of Pinot Noir coming online.