The Day in the Life of a Chardonnay Vine

I'm driving through my vineyard this morning doing my usual scouting for whatever may present itself and it occurs to me that some folks have never seen this before. The life of a grapevine. For a brief moment, I thought a "Grape-Cam" was a good idea.... but it quickly passed on as who really, would want to watch a grape camera...

But since we are so early in the season, I thought I would start maybe a monthly " life of a chardonnay vine" so you can see how the vine grows, matures, produces, and ripens fruit in a single season.

I picked chardonnay because its probably the most familiar grapevine we grow that folks would recognize the name. Our vineyard which is 22 acres has 8 different commercial varieties and 24 research varieties for the University of Maryland.

So here it is April 23, 2013 and this is a Chardonnay grapevine. You can see a couple things.

1.  We had bud break last week. Chardonnay is an early variety and is typically in bud first. Budbreak is determined by soil temperature and variety. Our soils have not been warming up all that quickly so we are a bit late from usual budbreak timeframe.

2. We have "apical dominance" which is the tendency for the buds further out from the trunk to be longer and more developed than those closer to the trunk. One premise is that the energy of carbohydrates is pushed through the plant's vascular system toward the outer buds. You can see here that although the last bud on the far right did not "push", the second to the last bud is the most developed as compared to the buds to the left of the frame. The 3rd from the last bud also did not "push" but I can't say I paid attention to that when I was taking pictures so I will have to go back and investigate.

3. We cane pruned which means we laid down a new cordon arm, also known as the "fruiting arm". This is where all the fruit will hang this coming season. Cane pruning allows us to get rid of last years' cordon arm which may have residual spores or bacteria, and lay down fresh wood. We cane prune all our red varieties and all our vinifera varieties. We spur prune all our white hybrid varieties.

4. We have no neighbors... Yup pretty much. In a 4+ mile stretch of our road, there are 7 homes, 3 of which are inhabited by our family :)

What I don't see yet is frost damage. We had a frost yesterday morning. The kind where you have to scrape the windshield. So while I don't see any frost damage yet, I am watching closely as these young buds are so tender and so susceptible. We lost nearly 40% of our crop last year due to frost. I really don't want a repeat.

So I will try to remember which plant this was (don't worry, I marked it) and you can follow this Chardonnay plant from April through September when we will be harvesting the fruit and delivering it to the winery!

Chardonnay is a grape!

Those of you who know me or have followed my blog or tweets, you know that my main focus on our family farm is grape production.  We have 22 acres of winegrapes on our farm which is currently the largest wholesale vineyard in Maryland. I say wholesale because there are vineyards associated with wineries that are larger than ours. When I say we have a vineyard, folks assume that we are also a winery. We're not.  You wouldn't want to drink anything I have previously attempted to ferment. I've given up trying to gain the winemaking skill set and focused on developing my skills as a high quality grape producer. In addition to growing grapes on our farm, I also provide custom vineyard management services and consulting to other vineyard owners in our region.



Photo Credit: Curt Dennison



There is quite a bit of interest in growing grapes. Folks seem to think its "romantic". Personally, I've found nothing all that romantic about working in 100 degree heat in July or lifting 30 pound lug after lug of grapes onto a trailer to haul to a winery, but to each his own. Folks love the aesthetics of a well managed vineyard and enjoy consuming the product that comes from it. As romantic as it may seem to walk through a vineyard with a glass of wine, its takes a huge amount of work, mostly hand labor, to manage a vineyard. As a kid, my first job was working shade tobacco in Western Massachusetts where I grew up. It was a very labor intensive job. Grapes are even moreso. Keep that in mind if you're considering  a vineyard on your property.



Our vineyard at sunset.

We frequently have visitors and folks stop by who are interested in having a vineyard or just stop by out of curiosity. When they ask what grapes I grow, and I list them off, I usually hear "Oh! I didn't know __________ (fill in the blank) was a grape! I thought it was just the name of a wine." Chardonnay is a grape. Chardonnay wine comes from the Chardonnay grape. Likewise for Merlot, Riesling, Malbec, etc...


Hand harvest of Vidal Blanc, one cluster at a time...

Everything we have planted in our vineyard was at the request of one or more wineries in Maryland. When we first started growing grapes 10 years ago, there were only 12 wineries in the entire state. I called every one of them and asked what grapes they were in need of and kept a tally sheet to see which varieties had more interest. Today there are 55 wineries in Maryland and each variety we grow was planted at the request of at least one of them.

For red grapes (actually they are purple, but they make red wine so we call them red grapes), we grow: Sangiovese, Barbera, Pinotage, and Chambourcin. In addition, we manage customer vineyards who grow: Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, Shiraz, Malbec, and Landot Noir.



Sangiovese, an Italian red grape.



For white grapes we grow: Chardonnay, Pinot Gris (is actually a purple-ish skinned grape but makes white wine, Pinot Gris is the grape, Pinot Grigio is one of the style wines). Traminette (hybrid of the grape Gewurztraminer), and Vidal Blanc. We also manage vineyards that grow Sauvignon Blanc and Petit Manseng. These are all grape varieties thus the name of the wine if they are bottled as a varietal wine. There are still hundreds of others grape varieties.



10 Tons of Vidal Blanc, hand-harvested and loaded for delivery.

We take great pride in high quality winegrape production. They say that wine is made in the vineyard, which is true. Poor quality grapes do not make great wines. Our grapes have netted wineries awards locally and regionally. This year, our grapes are represented in 9 awards given at the 2012 Maryland Governor's Cup including a Best in Class, as well as gold, silver and bronze medals for several of the wineries. The wineries include: Frederick Cellars, Boordy Vineyards, Cassinelli Winery, Layton's Chance Winery, St. Michael's Winery, and Woodhall Wine Cellars.

2012 Maryland Governor's Cup Awards

So far the 2012 season is one of our best grape-growing years. The drought which negatively impacted the corn and beans for the second year in a row, is beneficial for the grapes. (Thus it pays to be diversified) Unlike last year however, when we had 45 inches over an 8 week period during grape harvest, this year the rains hasn't come in amounts that cause the grapes to rot and fall apart.

We have hand-harvested 71 tons of grapes in the last 3 weeks. My picking crew is dedicated and hard-working. Without them, we'd never get all the fruit picked. We have about 50 more tons to go over the next couple of weeks. The fruit is in beautiful condition, super sweet with these warm days and cool nights. 2012 should be a fabulous vintage!