Ecotourism, my patutti!

We are now looking at more work, I mean fun,with final training up the vines. It's tedious, detailed and.....fun. As Kenny's email invitation shown below will attest.

Well, that all depends on your idea of fun. I can't think of anything I'd rather do at dawn then don some bug protection, pull my hair back under a hat, put on my pruning backpack (complete with vine ties, vine wire holders, and pruning shears)and perform endless deep knee bends in the vineyard.

And besides, look at how enticing the marketing director of K Squared Vineyards made his request.....

"Hello All,

Yes, that’s right—we are offering the opportunity of the summer! The weekend of July 24th-25th we are offering a FREE Eco-Tourism Vacation at K-Squared Vineyards in beautiful Palisade Colorado! Should you choose to accept this unbelievable offer your vacation will start on Saturday morning with FREE coffee or tea before heading out to the vineyard very early before it gets too hot! Our main goal of this FANTASTIC Eco-experience is to prune and re-train the vines which were lost (80%) to the extreme freeze of this past winter. When it gets too hot to work in the field we’ll break for the day and either go float on the river, ride on the Mesa or take a nap! The evening will include a dazzling BBQ feast, dancing and of course plenty of wine (and or beer)! For those that didn’t get enough of the Eco-experience on Saturday, we’ll repeat the process on Sunday!

We hope to see you here! It’s sure to be an unbelievable experience!! Please RSVP for choice free accommodations!"

Operators are standing by to take your reservation now!

Remember imbibe and enjoy!

Spicy Watering

Nothing like the sun in the middle of July to fry everything under the sun. In Colorado, the humidity is low so the nights are cool, but 110 in the sun during the middle of the day is still hot and way unpleasant. But it’s a dry heat. Thus, you’re being baked in a pizza oven as opposed to be braised in the pressure-cooker humidity of the Midwest. Neither feels good. Ergo…..

Ahh……cool, crisp water. It’s time to water the vineyard again. Time to provide the vines a needed reprieve from the elements.

The cool water from the grand Colorado River diverts into our 6 inch pipe and flows through the dozens of 3” holes down the furrowed creases positioned about a foot away from each vine. As the water oozes from the furrow into the light brown, sandy, clay dirt, the soil’s color transforms from harsh, desert tan to a rich milk chocolate brown. The saturated dirt feels cooler…literally. When it’s completely soaked into the top soil and reaches the vines, I can physically see the vines get happy.

I imagine the satiated vines must feel the same way I did when I made the 9-mile hike down into the Grand Canyon in July a couple of years ago. I started at the top of the south side of the canyon and it was hot (low 90s), and by the time I reached the bottom of the canyon, it was super hot, oven hot, oh my god hot. Way over 110. Luckily, there’s water and lots of it, the Colorado River, flowing through the bottom of the canyon. Exhausted, dehydrated, and overheated, I took off my hiking boots and lowered my bare feet into the river.

The initial feeling of my hot, sweaty skin surrounded by the immersion of my feet into the cool, caressing water was orgasmic. The coolness immediately sent chills up my spine. My feet felt pain, then a tingly, prickly sensation. Followed by goose bumps all over my body. Expressed by an uncontrollable “Aahhhhh” spilling out of my mouth while my head tipped back and my eyes closed uncontrollably. Finalized with an endless smile. (You know what I’m talking about.) I happily fell back against the rock and contently stared up at the desert blue sky.

Well, shoot no wonder those vines are happy.

Remember imbibe and enjoy.

Nous Sont Fini

....for now. For now the field is mowed, the weeds are whacked, and the vines are happily growing tall. The vines are intermingled amid the 2nd and 3rd wires, a very happy sight for sure.

For now we can spend our weekends doing something else besides vineyard work, sunup to sundown.

For now the vines don't need to be watered, sprayed or pruned. They don't need to be fertilized, aerated or taped.

At this very moment, they remind me of little children all snug in their beds. Their faces have that angelic look that makes you fall in love with them all over again. The vines all big and leafy, some with green grapes thinking about turning purple, are the true gifts given to us by mother nature. Heavenly.

So tonight.....we celebrate. We crack open a very yummy bottle. A must have in every drinking person's cellar. Tonight we open a bottle of Blackstone Sonoma Reserve Rubric, 2006 vintage. Rubric is 59% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot, 8% Petite Verdot, 8% Syrah, 7% Cabernet Franc,

6% Petite Sirah, and 2% Tannat. Whoo, what a mix! By the way, I have no idea what Tannat. Could use some help here. :)

It's a $20 bottle of wine, steep in my book of always finding the cheapest good wine. But boy it is good! I mean like take the first sip and say "ummm." good. It's smooth. No tastebud adjustments required. You know when you drink some wines, your first response is "whew! that is tang-g-g-y. I'll get used to it." None of that.

Here's what they say about their wine: "Aromas of black cherry, blackberry jam, cassis, cigar box (really? please), and coffee with a hint of toasted spice. This stunning blend carries layered flavors of ripe , jammy black fruit (that I can actually taste, that's it. No cigar box or coffee) This is a concentration wine with a rich mouthfeel and silky texture. Fine, supple tannins provide a lingering finish perfect for pairing with braised short ribs, herb-coated lamb, or dark chocolate souffle.

Alright now I'm getting hungry. This should be perfect with the pork chops we're having tonight. For tonight and this weekend we celebrate the vines at their finest.

Remember imbibe and enjoy.

The Zen of Mowing

Ah, the zen of mowing. There's just something about it. After wandering through 3 feet of random weeds, there's something so fulfilling about the neatness of a lawn in the vineyard.

Not that it is the green-ness of grass by any means. I mean, take a look at the photo, but it's now orderly and my worry about the vines being completely taken over is at bay for now. There is such a satisfaction in having a task completed.

Yet it's more than that. When I'm sitting on the tractor being jiggled to death by the mower on the back end, smelling diesel exhaust, and feeling the heat of the engine, it feels like life. Slowly moving down the rows, the mower spinning away at high rpms just inches away from the vine feels god-like. To take life or to give it.

Travelling down each row, skilled at moving the tractor-mower as one without harm to the vines is cathartic, like knitting, except with something that would happily run you down and chop you into bits if you didn't pay attention.

My mind starts to wander when I get to the 10th vine only to be jolted back again into reality realizing I'm too close to the next vine. "Move it or it'll be toast!" my mind shouts out. With this kind of scenario one is required to be present.

Present in every part of the action. Is the tractor running okay? Is it almost out of gas? Is the mower linkage loosening up due to the vibration? Is the mower too low, too high? Should I stay in the row crease or should I move closer to the vine to really cut down those close weeds? All this rolls around in my mind the entire time I'm mowing. No room to think of anything else.

Zen. See I told ya.

Remember enjoy and imbibe.

The Trunks are Outta Here!

The first step in re-training the vines is complete! Last year's dead wood is a thing of the past. Now on to bringing up the new growth back to the first wire.



You gotta take the successes where you can get them.



One of the things I noticed this year compare to last year is this year the vines look a lot hardier. They look like they've established themselves and are ready for business. At least that's what I'm hoping anyway.



The old trunks and branches get mowed up by the tractor to become mulch in the field. That should help keep the nitrogen high for the vines to absorb.



I was drinking wine with my next door neighbor last night and asked him if their vineyard was this much work at the beginning. Over a supersize bottle of Beringer Pinto Grigio he assured me that what is happening is completly normal. Who needs a shrink?



Remember enjoy and imbibe.

Farm Hands

Day after day our hands dig in the soil, the vines and the weeds. Pulling out the unwanted, pushing around the nourished, and pampering the blessed. Our hands are showing the toil of our work.

Tried wearing gloves, but the barrier between vine and skin is as if it is a vast desert of leather that can never be crossed. Ergo, the hands are naked. Exposed without shield to the elements of nature.

After working with hundreds of plants, our hands our permanently stained the color of green and dyed that of black dirt. Our fingernails look as if we just finished up a long hard day at the mechanic's shop. The blisters that are upon even deeper blisters, no longer hurt at the surface because the rawness is so deep.

Thorns from thistles and small pieces of wood from dead grape vine trunks embed themselves into our flesh, but the skin needs not to react to the intrusion. The tips of our fingers are so calloused that they have no more wrinkles. And the rest of our hands have now have more wrinkles than can be counted. Our fingernails our non-existent, smoothed down with the sandpaper of life in the vineyard.

We soak our hands nightly in vaseline, and attempt to suppress our pain with wine and pain killer. But the throbbing soreness still interupts our dreamless sleep.

The life of a worker in a vineyard. Even more of a reason to relish the flavors of the grape.

Remember enjoy and imbibe.

The 80/20 Rule

The grapes leaves arrive but not quite as planned. Last year, Kenny was quite optimistic with regard to the maturity of the plants. So I reluctantly tied up the vines last year as if they will be strong and fruitful from now on.

Now fast forward to the present, as you can from the photo, some of the vines were not as optimistic as the owner. What we're seeing is the 80/20 rule.

Twenty percent of the vines are growing nicely from the branches on the fruit load wire (bottom wire to the non-vintered). Beautiful shoots are nicely placed with loads of grape blossoms obediently beginning to hang down to make that lucious fruit. But they are not sprawled out all over the vineyard. Just in strategic locations. The location of the growth is somewhat telling. It's by the house and the garage and by the neighbor's trees.

Hmm......what gives? Maybe the vines were saved by the "heat" of the structures. Or maybe not. Maybe it's that those vines are closer to the water source and there's underground leakage. Or maybe the planets have aligned to send protective energy across just those sections. Who knows?

That leaves 80% growing up from the ground. Yes, I said the ground. Many of you may remember from last season, and the driving reason why I started a blog about life as a vinter was that I was so frustrated with the "training" of the vines from the ground.

The work is back breaking and slow and hot and whine, whine, whine. Geez, enough already. Poor you! Get over it! So moving on....

Well, we get to do it again for 80% of the vines. But this time there's more to the fun. First, we'll have to cut the old branches and trunks too for that matter, some 2"in diameter entangled in the wire. And more disentangling them from the new vines and disposing of them somewhere. Bonfire party here we come!

Only then do we get to retrain all the new vines back up to the fruit load wire....again. Resculpting the main vine to drive cordon shoots up to the second and third wire (called the canopy wires). Cordons are just shoots from that vine that is on that lowest wire.

It looks like not much harvest of grapes for wine this year. I think this might be a good time to try our hand at making our own wine. What'd ya think?

Thank goodness there is plenty of wine from mature, happy vines from all over the world happily chilling in our wine cooler. Waiting for me to just drink. Ahh....

Remember enjoy and imbibe.