Vineyard folly update November

It's now almost one month into the brewing process. The "must" (the name for the mixture) has been racked twice now (rack means to siphon it to a new sterile jug), leaving the lees, or sediment, behind. The color has improved significantly since the first rack and now looks to be nearer to a normal wine. At first, the color was a real milky light purple, and didn't look anything at all like it should. Every so often I pull the cap and have a smell, and although it's pretty raw, it still has a hint of what it might be like when done. Really hard to describe though. I expect to be able to stabilize the wine (stop the possibility of re-fermenting) sometime in early January 2010. Once stabilized, it needs to sit for about 4-6 months before filtering and sampling it! I've had numerous requests to be the first to sample it, and might have to hold a lottery!

Update #6 - Harvest time!

September 22nd was the day of Harvest! It had been down to about -2 C a couple of nights earlier and we were too nervous to wait any longer, for fear of the grapes being ruined, either through the birds eating them, or that they would just shrivel up. At this point, the grapes were very sweet and so we went ahead and picked. We had a huge harvest of just over 600 grams (1.5 lbs) and took us all of 10 minutes to pick! As there was not enough fruit to complete a recipe for wine, I obtained another 3.5 lbs of Concorde grapes and blended them in to the crush on Oct 2/09. So, the results of our labour for 2009 are in a one gallon jug in the basement, and I'm hoping that it should be ready for us to taste around the end of March 2010. Interestingly enough, this would be about 1 year to the day that Glen and I discussed this venture over a couple of beers in the curling club!

Update #5 -Blue clusters

During the month of September, excellent weather persisted. We were so lucky in our first year, lots of warm days and evenings and a good amount of rain. The grapes continued to ripen but were still a little tart to the taste until that last two weeks of September. Near the middle of the month we began discussing an appropriate date to pick. Marty and Marie Bohnet from the Cypress Hills winery in Maple Creek had advised us to wait until just after the first frost. So we waited.....

Vineyard update #4 -Growing and Inspecting

During August, excellent growing conditions persisted. We decided to install some landscape fabric to keep the grass and weeds down, so that the vines would not have competition. By the end of the month, the grapes were larger and were starting to contain some blue coloration to them.

Vineyard update #3 - Growing Greenies

During July, our little charges begain to grow like crazy! We had warm weather,
quite a lot of rain (in future I will record the exact amounts -didn't occur to me this year - drat) and long days. In short, perfect conditions! During one of our Tuesday "vineyard inspection" nights, Glen pointed out that we had tiny little fruit clusters coming out! They were small and very green, but it was fruit, and a bit unexpected but very pleasing!

Vineyard update #2 "the Trellis"

Posts and wire were put in June 26/09, consisting of 6' cedar treated posts. Within a couple of days, the vines were beginning to "climb" the wire. Cool!

Vineyard update #1 June09

June 23, 2009. Well, guess what the heck! They're growing! Our babies have leaves, and little buds that we think are grapes. Of course they likely won't be ready for a couple of more years, but it is very encouraging. Had a look at them today, and it is apparent that a trellis system must be started right away.

Of course, Mojo was along to help

Vineyard beginnings

Here's our crazy venture. Glen and I talked about our mutual interest in wines over the past year. I put the crazy idea of growing our own grapes into his head. I researched it over the winter, located a local garden centre that brings vines in, and did a lot of Internet searching (as well as ruminating over a glass or two of the red stuff). Well, the vines finally arrived on May 20th and Glen picked up 20 of them (supposed to be 21 - "gambling" right? but one was morte) I went out to his farm and helped plant them, ably assisted by Mojo the wire haired pointer (and his slobbery tennis ball)! The area where they were planted has tons of western and some southern exposure to the sun, and drainage shouldn't be too bad. They are called "Valiant" grapes, and although we've never heard of them, they are supposed to be very hardy (down to -40C), and make excellent jelly and wine. So, here we go on our excellent adventure.......