What’s going on in the vineyard:

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Bud-Break and Shoot Thinning

Our vineyards are now full of life after their short and warm winter slumber.  This year bud-break, which is considered the start of the growing season has come between 10 and 14 days early due to a warm winter.  We have hardly seen frost on the ground which is rare for the Clarksburg Appellation.  All that said, the buds have burst and now shoots are growing.  The main factors affecting bud-break are climatic conditions (soil temperature), grape varietal, and date of pruning.  White varieties generally reach bud-break earlier than red varieties, and if you prune late, you tend to see bud-break later.

After the excitement of bud-break, you start thinking about shoot thinning. Shoot Thinning cleans up the vine so that you don’t have small, undesirable shoot growth in odd growing positions, wasting the vine’s valuable energy on the over-production of fruit.  This vineyard practice is based on the idea that on the given terroir (vineyard location and climate factors), you have a given amount of nutrients and potential flavor making biological precursors to work with.  If you spread these out among 40 clusters on a vine, you will have a very different wine result than if you spread them over 20 clusters on a vine.  The 20 cluster vine will have more concentrated flavors and will give, in general, a more favorable wine.  Each shoot has between one and three clusters on it.  By removing the undesirable shoots from our vines, we are taking the first step in the growing season to focus on growing high quality grapes.

– David