Waiting on bud break

It's a fun time at the vineyard as we patiently (or impatiently) wait for bud break to occur. Luckily, we finished pruning our vineyard today so we are officially ready for the season to begin. Because of last year's freeze, we waited a little longer before starting to prune. While we only lost about 30 percent of our overall tonnage last year from freeze, it's enough to make a vineyard owner nervous.

Bud break is later this year than normal. Somewhere around April 15 -17 is normally bud break. As of yet, we aren't seeing a lot of bud swelling on most of the vines which tells us that bud break is still a week or more away. That said, with these 70 degree days, that could shorten a week or less. Flexibility in vineyard management is a key ingredient!

As we begin to journal the happenings at the vineyard and winery, I hope you check back often to see what's going on.

Two of the owners are headed to Italy next week, and we've planned to post their experiences, likes, dislikes, and hopefully photos, here. So be sure to stop by back through to see how the trip to Italy is going.