Summer

We have submitted our official application to become a biodynamic vineyard.  The process is similar to the organic certification in that it takes 3 years after the application process and approvals by an accredited auditing agency to actually use the term biodynamic to describe the vineyard.  Our first site inspection is scheduled for late August.

Early in the summer we added 2 hives of bees and two dozen baby chickens to the operation.  Both the bees and chickens are meant to increase the biodiversity of the vineyard.  The bees got to work right away. Once the weather warmed up the queen bee started producing lots of baby bees!  The grapes are actually wind pollinated so the bees do their work with the fruit trees and flowers that are spread around the vineyard.  We may even get a little honey next year!  The chickens arrived in late May and grew like mad.  They are a heritage breed called Speckled Sussex.  We choose them as they are both a good meat bird and egg layer. The brown color makes it less likely that a hawk will have them for lunch.  We also wanted to select heritage breeds in an effort to help the rare breeds survive.  We did a lot of research using the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy at www.albc-usa.org.  The Speckled Sussex is also known for being a very friendly chicken.  When they are bigger, we plan on having them run in the vineyard by day eating lots of bugs and depositing lovely chicken droppings.  Tony built them a proper chicken shed for the evenings to keep coyotes, foxes and bobcats from getting too interested.  And of course we (and our friends, neighbors and Madrona Manor guests) will be eating a lot more eggs.

The vineyard is looking good.  After an extremely hot July, verasion started about a week later than last year.  Some of the Petit Verdot got a little sun burned, so we will have to go through and drop the sun burnt bits when we drop the green fruit.  The crop level looks a lot lighter than last year but very even.

Spring

This year we had a new addition to the vineyard in the form of a dozen Babydoll Miniature Southdown sheep we rented from Canvas Ranch in Petaluma www.canvasranch.com.  The job for the sheep is to eat weeds and control the cover crop while at the same time providing “natural” fertilizer back into the soil.  The sheep were delivered mid-February and have been munching away since then.  They look like dirty cotton balls amongst the bare vines.  In May when the vines were starting to leaf we sent them back to Canvas Ranch, their job completed.  The sheep have been popular with the press and Tony was even quoted in a LA Times article www.latimes.com.  This article was picked up by the Tribune Newspapers and has appeared far and wide.  We have received emails from as far as Canada, Chicago and Miami!

We have had a particularly wet and cold year so far, with over 60 inches of rain recorded in Healdsburg by the end of March.  But despite all of that we had flowering plums in bloom by Feb 16th, and the returning Canadian geese were starting to make their nest on February 22nd and hatched their new batch of goslings on March 30th.

During a short dry spell in March the vineyard crew from Bevill Vineyard management came out on March 2nd and 3rd and pruned all the vines.  This was after we had met with Mark Burningham from Benziger and their consultant Alan York to determine the best pruning plan for this year.  Once again we are using cane pruning for all of the mature vines, but decided that on the Merlot that was planted in 2004, that we would cut the vines back to just 2 buds to allow for a more even and consistent growth this year.

Bud break was a little later this year – around mid April.  We had a record amount of rain through the winter and April was soggy as well.  By the end of December our pond was overflowing – we had the most days ever that the pond was overflowing on the upper dam area by the footbridge.  In December there was also flooding along the Russian River.  Our property is far enough away that we were not affected but we could see the flooding from our east balcony.