Welcome to a new season at K Squared Vineyards! We just finished celebrating the completion of running wire so that those healthy, lush, green so green vines will have plenty of space to grow upward to the sky.We've been pulling wire forever....at least it seems like it. You be the judge. I figure the vineyard is 29 rows at 300 feet plus 7 rows at 50 feet each, and we have to pull 3 levels of wire. Thus, the vineyard holds 54,200 feet of wire. That is a little under 14 rolls of wire. Each roll weighs 60 pounds. No wonder my shoulders are tired. The great part is that this job should only be needed to be performed once....I hope. I pray.
Two weekends ago, in the snow....barefoot (just kidding about the shoeless thing) I went to the Colorado Vinters and Vinterculturists' monthly meeting. A pretty lively group, if I do say so myself. I think it's the wine drinking in the afternoon. During that meeting, we went on a little field trip out to a vineyard to check out the liveliness of the vines. With razor blade in hand (in a gentle snow storm that part's true), I meandered down vineyard rows of Merlot and Chardonnay, cutting buds from the vines to see if anything's growing. I tell you, it's a crap shoot. Some yes, some no. Some how the hell should I know? Mostly that.
So now we are pulling wire like mules through the vineyard. While I'm mushing, I'm looking at the little brown, shriveled, dead as a doornail-looking vines. They don't look good. But they don't look bad. I cut a couple buds from the vines and they look kaput. Not good! I get a mini anxiety attack and think "OH MY GOD, THEY'RE ALL DEAD! THIS IS GONNA BE SO MUCH WORK! ALL THIS WORK FOR NOTHING!"
So then I do what I always do when I think the vineyard is going to hell in a handbasket....I ask our neighbors, Greg and Christie. Their vineyard is just a stone's throw from our house. If their grapevine buds are dead, then everything is how it should be.
Calmly, I wander over to their vineyard and all their buds look dead too. Okay. Okay. But I'm still wrangling with the irrational thought that BOTH of our vineyards won't produce grapes and just about to panic again when Greg saunters up to the fence. We ask Greg what he thinks about the funerary buds, and he nonchalantly answers "Just wait. Give it time."
Wait? Wait! Wait. Wait I can do. I'm not too thrilled about having these 1400 vines take up all my awake, non-working hours of summer anyway, so wait I can do.
Then I realize there's a REALLY, REALLY good side to this dead bud thing. When cutting the buds, I noticed the vines themselves are alive. THEY'RE ALIVE! Last year most of the winter vines were as dead as a doornail at this time. Not this year. I dare ya to try and break off a vine branch this year. They are happy to be there and are ready for spring!
YEAH!! THEY'RE ALIVE!!! Geez, I hope I'm not this bi-polar through the whole season. I'm sure I won't be. Yes? No? Yes? No? I better get outta here.
And as always, Imbibe and Enjoy!
