Spring Time Is Here
Ready for winemaker dinner in Copenhagen...
Spring Time - The Energy Is Back!
Its sure been a real busy spring for us. April started out with three weeks in Europe – mostly business trip to Denmark. So great to be back “home” again to catch up with family and friends. Amazing winemaker dinners, great 2021 Pinot Noir barrel sample tasting and blending sessions, visits with key accounts to taste new releases, business lunches with friends and wine buyers…all in all 23 events over three weeks. Not to mention a two day visit to the Spanish island Mallorca discussing a new business opportunity. A little tired but with a smile on my face I boarded the plane back to California. Oh, did I mention that I also enjoyed a Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) concert in Copenhagen? Lifetime experience!
Back home we started May out with a good bottling day – 2020 Pinot Noir, Syrah and Grenache as well as our friend Kurt Russell’s 2020 GoGi. Weekends have been filled with people at the ranch: Gaye’s 75 year birthday party, Peter and Mary Lou’s wedding celebration, “filos” wine club release party and a winemaker dinner at LA Zoo. This weekend we were participating (pouring) at our great friends Lauren and Jamie’s wedding and next weekend is Kurt’s wine club party at the ranch. Then the amazing Vintage Hollywood fundraiser event … No time to be introverted here!
pinot noir 667 flowering - the tiny inflorescences are opening up (5/27/23)
Pinot Noir Flowers Are Here - Finally
After the very wet winter we had a cold spring. Nothing alarming though although we had to run our frost protection system four times during lightly freezing mornings -- but the fragile vines did just fine. Budbreak was unusually late but with all the moisture in the ground from the winter rain the vines are catching up fast…and we have weeds like we have never seen before. So although some tractor implements needed unexpected repairs along the way we are starting to catch up now keeping nature in balance. We still love all the rain we got!
A week ago we finally discovered the first flowers of the year! It is such an enjoyable moment for us when we observe these little, fragile, white/light yellow flowers pop out. Now we just need a little more heat, not too much wind and no rain. Keep going, guys!
Sustainability - Organic - Biodynamic - Regenerative
The other day I was participating in the quarterly Board Meeting of California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance which is always very inspiring. I was thinking about all the things Rebecca and I are doing in the vineyard and winery – things that we somehow just take for granted as business-as-usual daily operation.
But every time we do an Ampelos presentation we notice that participants are so engaged and interested when we mention our farming approach. So I was thinking it might be a good time to share with you some of the many impactful things we do as part of our “green” farming principles.
So let’s toast to Sustainability, Organic, Biodynamic and Regenerative farming (SOBR) and start digging into it!
Introducing our SOBR Farming Series! To be continued in future newsletters.
Our chicken at work in the vineyard - part of our SOBR team!
SOBR Farming: Chicken!
Chicken: They are cute, make eggs and…but how do they fit into SOBR Farming? Well, here is how it works:
A little over 10 years ago we noticed that when we hand inspected the clusters on our mobile sorting table as we picked them we found a few clusters with some white, sticky dew on them. We learned that it was caused by the vine mealybug that seems to love hanging out in vineyards.
As we studied this further we found out that mealybugs have a symbiotic relationship with ants! Who likes ants? Chickens! So we introduced chickens into our vineyard by building coops close to the sections where we have found the bugs – and voila! Three years later and since then we have not had any more problems with that sticky dew!
We believe it is all about learning how to work together with Mother Nature in a partnership as opposed to control it.
All the best from Rebecca and Peter.
Be good to yourself and others - and enjoy great wine!
Cheers!