July has for the most part provided outstanding weather for the grapevines:  seasonably warm but not too hot.  Needless to say for El Dorado County and most of California, there was no rain.  July started out hot, like June, and is poised to finish that way with a string of days predicted to be in the triple digits.  However, the break in the middle was key for us in conserving irrigation water and in providing a window of opportunity for fruit dropping.

Fruit dropping/thinning, as we discuss every year, is for us an absolutely essential component of producing quality fruit.  It runs directly counter to the sensibilities of many farmers and grape growers, as it involves (at least with outside help) paying for labor to decrease the amount of fruit that can be harvested.  Since the only equation that matters for some is yield x price = $$, paying to decrease yield is foreign if not insane.  But not to us.  From experience on our site, we know approximately how much fruit our vines can carry and fully ripen.  Given time, and with no fruit dropping, grapevines may appear to ripen all they carry–and no doubt on some sites, with some varietals–this can and does happen.  However, in many cases, the grapes (assuming red grape varietals) may appear at a casual glance to be blue/purple, but on close inspection the color is actually less dense than in a fully ripe cluster, and the taste is anything but fully ripe.  The reason for this is that a vine has a finite capacity to fully ripen grapes and, since its biological purpose isn’t necessarily to produce grapes for excellent red wine, it may produce far more grapes than it can fully ripen.  Fruit dropping, then, can bring the vine into “balance”.

Thanks to a wonderful stretch of weather in the 80’s last week, we were able, with a mere 150 or so hours of work, to adjust fruit loads in our barbera and primitivo fields with fruit dropping.  This was key, because the same operation done in 100-degree weather–apart from being almost untenable by mid-day–is likely to result in sunburn in clusters left behind (retained) after fruit thinning.  Fruit thinning is most effective when done early enough in the season to impact the ripening of what is left, and so doing it already near veraison for both barbera and primitivo was ideal.  In short, Mother Nature gave us a little opening last week, and we took it!  And with the last powdery mildew prevention spray of the season just applied, we are ready for our favorite operation of the year (NOT): bird netting.  Actually, our Quinta block has been netted for almost 3 weeks now, which we were prompted to do by veraison in the tempranillo already by July 3.  The birds show every sign of being aggressive on stealing fruit this year, which has been a delight to our house cats, which position themselves in and around bird netting, waiting for one to get stuck.  We witnessed our 2 yo tom stalk one such bird, leap high within a net, grab the bird and get his paws caught in the net, briefly, dangling in mid-air at full extension.  It would have made a terrific YouTube video had we been ready to capture it!

Because we have been successful in conserving water while otherwise maintaining all 4 blocks of our barbera, we were able to clear our waiting list for barbera by confirming availability of fruit for those on the list and make an additional 1.5 tons available for sale.  Fruit load overall appears light in the primitivo and touriga, so it remains to be seen whether we will be able to provide fruit for our waitlisted clients for those varietals.

June has been payback time after an exceptionally pleasant May weather-wise.  It can be described in 3 words:  sunny, hot, and dry.  Following an isolated rain event on June 10  that clearly capped the “rainy season”, we have consistently been in the 90s to low 100s in temperatures, with no relief in sight.  We can hardly expect less for July and August, so the key will be spending as little time as possible in the upper 90’s/100s.

In the vineyard, we are enjoying a slight lull before more handwork resumes.  The weeds between rows have at last exhausted surface water and won’t grow back now after 3 rounds of cutting.  The vines are looking healthy and squarely focused now on berry development.  After getting some warning signals from our well, we are altering our irrigation pattern to maximize irrigation efficiency.  Going forward, we will only be watering at night when evaporation will be less.  Limiting irrigation to night will have the effect of drawing from our well more gradually, giving it time to recharge.  This will result in less “deep” irrigation than we would like, but it’s what we need to do to get through the season.

The next major operation will be fruit dropping, which will need to be timed to maximize impact and minimize sunburn, and yet as soon as practical following the last powdery mildew prevention spray so that we can then deploy bird netting.  If bird (and skunk, and raccoon, and squirrel!) pressure on our other fruit is any indication, we’ll want to get those nets on early to protect the grapes.

Fruit set looks decent overall, with what looks like plenty of crop in the barbera, and lighter but adequate crop in the primitivo due to “shatter” (loss of berries after fruit set) that is typical and variable year-to-year in primitivo.  The fruit load in the Portugese varietals look about average.  We’ll adjust crop to where we want it with fruit dropping in a few weeks.

Wine judging season, driven primarily by the State Fair this year for us on the commercial side, has yielded some big winners.  Though not identified with vineyard designated bottlings, a barbera and a touriga wine made with our fruit earned high honors at the California State Fair.  The 2013 El Dorado barbera from Westwood Family Cellars took a gold, best of class of region.  This means that, in the opinion of the judges, it was the best barbera from the Sierra Foothills region (encompassing El Dorado, Amador, Calveras, and several other counties) at the State Fair this year.  Considering that Amador and El Dorado counties have established themselves as the source of much-and we believe some of the finest-varietal barbera in the state, this is quite an achievement.  Wreckless Blenders’ 2013 barbera, also made with our fruit, captured a solid silver medal in the same competition.

We were equally excited to see that Wreckless Blenders’ 2013 touriga–made from our grapes and blended with a little barbera also from our vineyard–took a gold medal, best of class of region, at the State Fair.  This is the same wine that we blogged about enthusiastically after tasting it a couple months ago.  The varied microclimate, soil, and terrain of our region support quite a variety of excellent miscellaneous varietals, so best of class in a category of miscellaneous red varietal blends is a gratifying result for a varietal that we particularly favor here at Shaker Ridge.  This wonderful touriga is currently available for sale directly from Wreckless Blenders.

Finally, in our 3rd Annual Home Winemaker competition, we can’t yet declare a winner, but we have an entrant with a commanding lead at this point.  Terry Piazza-Perham’s 2013 touriga wine captured a double gold at the Sacramento Home Winemakers 2015 Jubilee competition, one of only a handful of double golds awarded there.  This puts her in a clear lead over a pair of 2013 primitivos, one from Tom Montgomery and one from Steve Barrett, which earned respectable bronze medals in the same competition.  While entries are still possible per our contest rules, judging has already occurred in a number of the regional wine competitions, and the double gold should prove difficult to top (would require further distinction like best of class or show…).

We expect to be able to update our barbera availability next month with the water availability situation hopefully more clear at that point.  We hope to be able to confirm availability for some on our waiting list and may have additional fruit to offer.

May 2015 has been an astoundingly beautiful month in El Dorado, with generally mild weather and enough cloudy days to delay the inevitable browning out of the hillsides and postpone the need for irrigation in the vineyard.  We finally did see the very earliest indications of water stress in our vines and completed a full cycle of irrigation this past week.  However, the way things had been going in late winter/early spring, we were expecting this to begin much sooner, so this was a pleasant surprise.

The vines are now fully grown and looking fantastic.  We have completed shoot-thinning on a vineyard-wide basis, finishing with the block of barbera with the deepest soil for which the relative delay in thinning should have helped sap some of their natural vigor.  We are seeing no signs of powdery mildew despite excellent conditions for the same, no doubt due to our regular preventative spraying regimen, which so far this season has been with all organic materials.

Bloom is pretty much wrapped up in the barbera and primitivo vineyards now, and we also did a second round of suckering of lower shoots vineyard-wide while repairing and firing up the irrigation system for the season.  We have also tucked shoots in the Quinta, our only trellised block of vines.  It is too early to say how fruit set went for certain, but based on the initial appearance of the berries and the generally fair weather during bloom, we anticipate no problems.

We are now officially sold out of all of our varietals for the 2015 season, though we are still taking wait-list requests for our main three varietals:  barbera, primitivo, and touriga in case there is a slight excess of available fruit. The barbera is most likely to have significant quantities of fruit later available, as we are still holding back posting the production of two blocks of our barbera due to the drought:  one that we expect we will ultimately have to sell and one that we doubt that we will have to sell.  We will offer this fruit on a first-come, first-served basis from our waitlist that we post regularly in conjunction with our “Current Grape Availability” postings.

We are still accepting entries for our 3rd annual Shaker Ridge Home Winemaker competition.  Entry in our competition is free and open to anyone who has a wine made at least 85% with our grapes in vintages 2011 onward who enters a wine in certain acceptable blinded, public competitions thru Aug. 1 and who contacts us in advance of judging of that competition to confirm that they want their wine included.  We would need to know the competition you are entering, the vintage of the wine, and the varietal(s) purchased from us.  First prize–for best outcome in acceptable competitions–is 250 lbs of grapes of our grapes.  Please see our March “Vineyard Diary” blog for full competition details (http://www.shakerridgevineyard.com/2015/03/20/vineyard-diary-3-20-15/).  At present, we have only one entry for the competition, so you have an excellent chance of winning the grand prize!  Sacramento Home Winemakers:  the 2015 SHW Jubilee competiton qualifies, so please e-mail us by June 12, 2015 if you have entered a wine made with our grapes in that competition and would like to be considered for our prize.