The sun is back!

I never thought I would be so happy to see the sun again.  Living here we get our fill of it, I often wish it would rain like it has recently.  The only problem is, it lasted a whole MONTH!  Our roussanne vineyard (that we just rented this year)  has suffered an attack of downy mildew, so we've been scrambling to try to find some natural remedies since copper sulfate is preventative, not curative.  A horsetail infusion is one thing we sprayed on it mixed with some bentonite clay.  This afternoon I went out and sprayed whey on them with a backpack sprayer.  It looks like it's not spreading any further, so now we'll just have to see how many of the bunches were effected.  It basically makes the grapes shrivel up and fall off, and since they are just starting to flower, we won't know for awhile how bad it is.  It's not everywhere though, so at least we'll have some grapes to harvest.  Apparently roussanne, is very sensitive and susceptible to most diseases!  This is our first experience with a varietal like that, what bad timing as far as the weather is concerned!

The other thing the rain had done, is make the weeds grow out of control!  Matt had a few afternoons on the Weed Badger before it really got wet last week, so half of our biggest vineyard is really looking good.  The other half is being engulfed by the weeds.  The rows have been mowed but in between the vines, they are almost as high as the vines are, which really isn't good from a mildew perspective.  Just take a look at the difference, it was a good year to invest in mechanical weed control!

Comments

[Greg]

I just saw the '06 Gramiere at KL in Berkeley yesterday, but only on my way out. I'll have to pick a few up next time I'm there! I hope all is well.

-Greg