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.

Premature summer has given way to some beautiful spring weather, including clouds and, yes, a little bit of rain.  We actually received an unexpectedly generous shot of 2.3 inches of rain on April 24-25 that was readily soaked up by rapidly drying topsoil.  Unfortunately, this past week’s chance of rain/thunderstorms on several days translated into only an additional 0.1 inches of rain.  Overall, we have received an essentially average 23+ inches of rain during our traditional wet season, but this is unlikely enough to fully recharge our well after several drought years.

The vine shoots have nearly reached their maximum length, growing rapidly in the last month.  Bloom–the flowering of grapevines– has already happened in our Quinta touriga and tinta cao sections and is just about to begin in the primitivo and barbera.  Bloom is not marked by showy flowers but rather by a delicate, distinct, honey suckle-like aroma that lasts about a week.  We typically sample petioles at this time to check on nutritional status of the vines ahead of fruit set.

The main vineyard operations at this time of year are regular spraying to prevent powdery mildew–we primarily use an organic oil product–and shoot thinning (sometimes called suckering).  Our grapevines try to produce many more shoots than we intend them to, and the extra shoots need to be removed to focus the vine’s energy and better open the vine up to sun and air.   The shoot thinning is a very labor-intensive operation for which we typically need to engage outside labor to augment our own in order to complete in a timely manner.

Two additional commercial wines made with our grapes have recently been bottled and are available for sale from Wreckless Blenders in Carmichael, CA.  We had the pleasure of tasting the 2013 barbera and 2013 touriga at a Wreckless Blenders event in mid-April, and they did not disappoint:  both are excellent examples of their respective varietals.  The 2013 follows a sold-out 2012 barbera also made from our grapes by WB, whereas the 2013 touriga is WB’s first effort with this wonderfully aromatic Portugese varietal.  Both wines are available for sale directly from Wreckless Blenders; get them while you can!

Our 3rd Annual Shaker Ridge Home Winemaker competition remains open to entries for the 2015 judging season.  In short, we are offering 250 lbs of our winegrapes to the best homemade wine made with our grapes based on results in selected, reputable public wine competitions such as the El Dorado County Fair, the Amador County Fair, the Orange County Fair, the California State Fair, and the Sacramento Home Winemakers June Jubilee.  Critical to the entry is informing us, prior to judging of the respective  competition, of entries made at least 85% with our grapes.  Please see our previous (March) post for full competition rules and details.

In light of the drought, we have decided to idle–which in this case means not irrigate and not harvest fruit (the grapevine pretty much does what it wants…) from Block 1 of our barbera.  Block 2 will be brought along but not committed to any clients until we are confident that we will be able to irrigate it adequately.  Nevertheless, we still have ~2.5 tons of barbera that we are definitely cultivating and that is still available for sale.  Waitlists are available for our primitivo and touriga.

The winter that wasn’t in the Sierra Foothills is now officially over with today’s spring equinox.  A variation on the famous Mark Twain quote about San Francisco might read: “The hottest summer I ever spent was winter in El Dorado.”  Already the distant Sierra snow caps show the mottled appearance of partially melted snow that one would normally expect to see in late May or early June.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that we can’t still get a rogue freezing night in March or April that would wreak havoc on young grape shoots, and that in fact is the major threat going forward.

Bud burst came early in the vineyard as expected, with one of our early birds, tinta cao, pushing on March 10, a full week ahead of last year (itself an early year).  Our touriga and other Portugese varietals, apart from souzao which always pushes later, were also about a week earlier than last year.  Our barbera–we think because of our intentional late pruning thereof and not due to any Irish heritage of the vines–reached generalized budburst on exactly the same day as last year:  March 17. The primitivo has not pushed yet, but this is consistent with a timing that is usually 1-2 weeks later than our barbera.  All things being equal, this early trend at bud burst would suggest harvest no later than last year, and potentially a bit earlier for some varietals.  So, particularly for our primitivo buyers, don’t make any travel plans for Labor Day!

We managed to complete winter pruning, get our weeds sprays down, mulch the pruned canes, and complete a round of mowing right before budburst in most of the vineyard. This is a particularly pleasant time in the vineyard with warm but not scorching spring days, green grass, and mostly only the pruned older wood showing on the vines.  But this is a brief period which will quickly give way to abundant new shoot growth in the vines and rapid growth of grass and cover crop between the rows, followed of course by the real heat.

We are pleased to announce the availability of the 2012 touriga from Bumgarner Wines in Camino, CA that was made with Shaker Ridge grapes from that superb vintage.  Winemaker Brian Bumgarner has produced a truly elegant example of a dry touriga wine that showcases the lovely fruit, aroma, color, and structure of this Portugese varietal.  We highly recommend that you taste a beautifully crafted example of this exquisite varietal wine while it’s still available for sale.

Homemade Wine Competition

We are also pleased to announce our 3rd Annual Shaker Ridge Homemade Wine Competition to encourage formal judging and award excellence in wines made from our grapes.  The grand (and only…) prize will be 250 lbs of free wine grapes from our “Grapes Available” list. This year, we only have barbera still available for sale, but the prize could be used in a future vintage where additional choices may be available.

Entry rules are as follows:

• The wine must be made at least 85% from grapes grown at Shaker Ridge Vineyard from vintage 2011, 2012, 2013, or 2014
• You must contact us, in writing (email is fine), ahead of judging for a given competition to let us know that you have entered a wine of type X, vintage Y from our grapes.  We will confirm that your entry is or is not valid for our competition based on our sales records.  There is no cost to enter, and no obligation for future purchases.
• 2015 home winemaker competitions results considered:  El Dorado County Fair, Amador County Fair, Orange County Fair, California State Fair, and Sacramento Home Winemakers June Jubilee.  Additional 2015 public, blinded competitions will be considered with advance agreement from Shaker Ridge, provided that results will be known by August 1, 2015.  Unfortunately, for the purposes of this competition, we cannot consider past results with the above vintages, only upcoming (prospective) entries.
• Wines winning our competition previously are not eligible for winning again.
• Appreciating the subjectivity in wine judging, we will consider the best outcome for a  given wine unless two or more wines with the same best outcome have been entered multiple times.  In the latter case, we will consider the best average outcome.  Ranking of outcomes is: double gold>gold>silver>bronze>honorable mention, with acceptable competitions given equal weight for such designations.  Tie breakers would include additional distinctions, eg Best of Show, Best of Class.   If the above criteria don’t yield a single winner, we may request a taste-off to designate the grand prize winner.
• Entrants agree that we can choose to post the results–good, bad, or indifferent–including winemaker, wine, competition, and result, on this website.  We will use your initials if you prefer relative anonymity and if you let us know this at the time you contact us with your entry.  Otherwise, your full name will be used.

Good luck!