The Joy of Farming Wine Grapes by Cass Winemaker and Vineyard Manager Lood Kotze

Once again another cycle of grape growing has begun in the vineyard. We are currently in early bud break, a time I truly enjoy as it is probably one of the most beautiful periods in the vineyard. It has been a very dry winter, which is never a good thing in agriculture where you depend on good water for a successful crop, however the late rain has been a wonderful gift, and I believe, even with this year’s rain well below average, the timing of the March / April rains will be very effective, as it is right there, when and where it is needed, in the root zone when growing starts.

A very dangerous and potentially devastating occurrence during this time of the growing season is off course late winter frost, and the one growing challenge grape growers in this area will complain about most. There are few more discouraging sights to a grape grower then seeing the new shoots burnt and dried up from cold chill, often times from a single frost event.

I added a photo from April 9 this year. We had five days where it got around 28F, for five nights. It was a bit of a reminder of last years devastating frost, exactly a year ago, although not nearly as destructive. The positive side, was that very few of the varieties were in bud break since this year seems to be two to three weeks later then last year, at least for us.

Currently my parents are visiting from overseas, spending time with us and their grandsons. My dad, working in agriculture for well over 40 years, could not resist accompanying me at 3:30am to the vineyard during this mentioned freeze event. He told me a story I just had to share.

“A seasoned grape grower was walking down town one day and recognized a grape grower friend of his, selling hammers off his truck’s tailgate. After the normal greetings, his friend explained he had sold his vineyard recently, and he started this new business selling tools. The grape grower could not help but notice the low price which the hammers were selling for. Concerned he asked his friend: you are selling these hammers for $8 a piece, what do you get them for? His friend replied: I pay wholesale price of $12 a hammer. The grape grower commented: but you can’t make money like that! On which his entrepreneur friend replied: It might be, but I am still doing a lot better then when I was selling grapes.”

Anyway, it made me laugh. Frost or no frost, I’ll celebrate the new season with a glass of wine.

The Resilient Gopher by Steve Cass

Besides adverse weather, the biggest pest in the vineyard is the gopher. Anyone with a garden probably has wrestled with the best way to avoid the damage they can do to anything with a tasty root system. One day you have a healthy young tree, the next day it is dead. you wiggle the tree and it falls over, completely chewed off inches below the surface. there are poisons that can be effective but you never see the dead body, so you are not sure if it worked for a while. There are many creative and explosive techniques, some can be dangerous to the user.

Since we became a SIP Certified vineyard we are now trapping our gophers. Last year we trapped 460 of the little critters. The most common trap is called a Macabee, it grabs them with two steel prongs in the chest cavity, killing them right away. We started trapping again yesterday, our usual routine is to set our 40 traps and come back the next day to check them...yesterday we trapped 10 within minutes of setting the traps..the little critters are very active right now.

I have been doing a lot of digging around the winery to set up irrigation and raised gardens. Virtually every time I sink my shovel or backhoe into the ground I discover a warren of tunnels, nests, schools, and gopher shopping malls underground. I was watering a transplanted bush and the ground opened up and emptied the pool of water that had accumulated around the bush...I continued to water for 10-15 minutes thinking I would drown the little guy. Within 15 minutes, when my back was turned, the little guy had packed the gaping hole with mud from the inside. I repeated the drowning technique, and again he back filled the hole with mud.

I admire his DNA, and am donating the bush to his family welfare. It's next to the woodshed, behind Ted's Taco Bar .