Winter is understandably the quietest time of the year in the wine business. Holiday madness is over. Restaurants often close for a bit in January. Everyone’s going to the gym or trying, and good on all of us for that!
So what IS happening?
Winter pruning is beginning in the vineyards. You don’t want start too early because, as gardeners know, cutting plants can encourage new growth. It’s far too soon for that!
Yet all the pruning has to get done before spring, so strategies are often to get to the colder sites first – they aren’t as prone to respond as much. And then hold off on the warmer sites until later, sometimes pruning can go into March with the hope of pushing off the earliest chance of budbreak.
The goal – to have the vines “bud out” come April and, we hope, make it through mid May when frost danger will have passed.
We work with several vineyards and each has its strategy. But if you’re ever wondering why vineyards aren’t pruned early and otherwise left with all of last year’s growth like a kid needing a haircut, now you know.
In the winery, we’re planning our upcoming bottling for all of our 2022 single vineyard Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays from the Willamette Valley, plus a new Tempranillo we’ve begun producing from a wonderful vineyard in southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley – our first adventure making wine from outside the Willamette. Exciting!
More detail on that and everything else we have coming up – do you know about our Napa Cabernet Sauvignon project?? – you should join our mailing list. We’ll have our Spring Prerelease Offer coming on February 1 just for list members. Easy to join, never any obligation to buy but we’ll try our best to tempt you.