pictures

A vidal blanc vine with a fake bunch of grapes. Ahhhhh..... Someday...

John driving the small tractor. He hasnt passed the exam to operate the big one yet.

One of four imbeciles.

Now we know what we are growing and where.

Who needs their prostate checked out?

A trench dug for the PVC pipe. It was a little too humid for digging.

Sawing PVC pipe in dangerous fashion.

The hose attachment end.

A low shot of the PVC hooked up to the drip line.

The finished product.

Observations

New pictures are on the way. I havent had time this week to upload the pictures we took this past weekend, August 9, 2008.

What we accomplished last Saturday was to install PVC pipe underground that connects the four drip lines so that all can be watered at once. Before we had to hook up the hose to each row individually and water 4 times as long.

We also put down wet newspaper along the cab franc rows in an effort to kill the grass that is growing. We topped the wet newspaper with manure. We suspect that the cab franc rows are fighting a losing battle with the several large oak trees nearby for water and nutrients. Their growth is less vigorous than the vidal, which are further away. Killing the grass underneath the trellis will remove some of the competition from the vine roots and the manure will give them a nutrient boost.

The vidal blanc vines look very healthy. They are almost uniform in their growth with a few exceptions. The cab franc are more spotty. Some look great and others look abysmal. A few cab franc are so pathetic that we may just cut the growth off this winter and let them start over.

We have made two fungicide applications. The first was the stylet oil and mancozeb. The second was agri-fos and stylet oil. So far the new growth looks healthy and free of disease. Hopefully the fungicides will keep it that way.

A few japanese beetles are still flying around and chewing on the leaves. We haven't sprayed sevin in a few weeks and probably wont for the rest of the year. The few beetles that do show up can be taken off by hand and squashed. It will be interesting to see if there are less next year b/c of the milky spore applied in the past.

Winery Equipment: The Press

After putting in our first order of fresh grapes, it is time to get serious about this whole winemaking process. As we may have mentioned in the past, our supplier MDCrush does do all of our processing on site to include Crushing and Pressing of the grapes. However this can become a problem when considering that wines, both white and red, benefit susbtancially from first being crushed and combined with the juice and then the pulp pressed after a given amount of time.

How were we going to be able to press our grape pulp in Maryland after carting it home and allowing it combine with the existing grape juice? The only obvious answer, or at least the only one we thought of was to buy our own press:


I have named her "Lady Luck" because I figure if there anything in this whole process that we are doing, it's pressing our luck. Ah, but pathetic atempts at humor aside, this little beauty is capable of pushing out 16 quarts of grapes in a single press. Her ratchet style action allows for greater pressing with less work, and her easy pour bottom spout allows the juice to quickly be funneled directy into my mouth.

She is being shipped from Lehmans.com and I will post more pictures of her unboxing when she arrives in late August, I know our readers can't wait.