Harvest Blog - October 13th

With just one small block of Malbec left in Hook Vineyard to be picked, I’m ready to call harvest 2022 a wrap. The vines have done their work for the year, and so has our vineyard team.

Of course, with farming things are never really “done done.” To get the vines ready for dormancy we’re watering and also applying fertilizer, essentially giving them food and drink before they bed down for the colder months. Some of the leaves have started to yellow, but I still see a fair amount of green in the vineyards. With no significant cold weather in the immediate forecast, I don’t expect to see leaves drop until mid to late-November, which is normal.

We’re also getting ready to plant cover crops in vineyard blocks with newer plantings, including some in Doctor’s and Lone Oak. Established blocks have native grasses that come back every year, so those we leave alone. But younger plantings need cover crops to provide nutrients and prevent erosion. We try to get those in just before the first rain so they have the benefit of moisture for germination.

And because January is not that far away, we’re already making plans for pruning. Over the next few weeks I’ll be looking at the yields we had in each block in 2022. This helps me determine how we’ll approach pruning this winter; in blocks where our yields were quite low, we’ll think about leaving a little more wood on the vines. In no time at all, the cycle will begin all over again. 

Patrick Headley
Director of Viticulture