January 2015 & ENSO

It's time to get to work on marketing!

A very brief update: 2012 and 2013 were failed vintage years. 2014 saw a decent vintage and about 1500 gallons were made.

What was learned in all this failure is vintages depend on the ocean's El Nino Southern Oscillation.  In positive El Nino event years we have a Pinot Noir harvest. In La Nina years we don't. It's about that simple in the big picture.

For more information about ENSO here is an official government site:

 http://www.climate.gov/news-features/department/enso-blog

Here are some charts that show ENSO event years

http://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm#

Bud Break 2011

Well it finally happened.  Compared to the northwestern Oregon area the bud break here is about 4 or 5 days later, which is closer together than the usual, 7-14 days. If we make it to a harvest it will be late October.  Vineyard practices will have to be adjusted to promote ripening.

May Day 2011

April was very cool and there isn't a bud yet broken.  Today the high shade air temperature was 69 and the high full sun temperature was 80.  The buds should move along quickly now.  While there is concern, it isn't failure yet.    

Frost 29.1F

It frosted this morning, hopefully it isn't too deep into the green shoots. *It appears to be ok as of 5/9

May Day!

The buds are out! It has been a slow past week for growth. The day temperatures rarely broke 60F and the nights have dipped to 45-34F. There was almost a grass frost too. Overall, I remain pleased with where the growth is at. Compared to last year, the vines are a couple days ahead. It is significant how the cool day temperature shuts down the shoot growth. The next target event is flowering.

Cold Blasts Continue

The second cold front of spring is pushing in. The buds haven't broken yet, they look like they are doing all they can to stay closed. The weather looks better next week and I think we will have bud break sometime around the 15th-20th.

Lystair (Le) Soil sandy loam

Mole hills give a good horizontal profile of the soil. This one shows more silt and clay then what much of the Lystair series shows, it probably should be mapped as Cloquallum Silt Loam and not Lystair.
The producing vines are on Lystair sandy loam soil (some Cloquallum silt loam too)

Here is the 1960 description by:

SOIL SURVEY OF MASON COUNTY, WASHINGTON
Report by A. 0. Ness, Soil Conservation Service, United States Department of Agriculture
"The Lystair series consists of somewhat excessively
drained, brown, sandy soils that occupy hilly kettles and
kames and nearby level outwash plains. They have developed
from nearby gravel-free, loose, sandy glacial drift
deposited mainly by out wash waters. The rainfall is 60 to
90 inches a year. The vegetation is a forest consisting
mainly of Douglas-fir and some thick stands of lodgepole
pine, and there is an understory of kinnikinnick, Oregongrape,
bracken fern, and salal.
The soils are somewhat excessively drained and are
droughty. They have a low capacity for available moisture.
Lystair soils occur in the western part of the county in
association with the Shelton and Grove soils. They have
a redder profile than the Indianola soils. In addition,
they have developed from more basic parent material,
under higher rainfall, and have darker sandy subsoils and
substrata."

Our water wells go to a depth of 70 feet and there hit basalt rock. There is no gravel all the way down to the basalt. The well water table doesn't drop when tested in late August. Lystair soil is a sandy loam. Future vineyard sites here could be on the Cloquallum silt loam, Maytown silt loam and Grove gravely loam.

Here is the soil site link: http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/