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What a great idea for a thread! Zinfandel (aka Primitivo) was my nemesis in 2023. We made it as a group wine in my garage and it took nearly 4 months to ferment reasonably dry…. It got stuck multiple times on the way down and thus required several restarts. But that’s a story for another...

For the most part, I haven't had to thus far - but this is only our third leaf. Our canopy was a little sparse last year - I am hoping for a more robust set of canes this year. I did tie a few up which were exceptional healthy and I thought I might want them as spare cordons - so I tied them...

Yup - it’s 2-3 feet across - just a big globe.

It’s interesting how we live perhaps 30 miles apart yet have such different soils and climates. I need to cover crop for erosion control, nitrogen fixation, and, most of all, adding organic mass to the soil. Yet I completely understand why you wouldn’t see the benefit given your conditions.

And here is a not great picture of a clover aisle. Try zooming it 😃 Note that the dandelions interspersed with the grape vines weren’t planted - they simply represent another project to be tackled!!

Well, it’s been a while since I posted. Just not much happening in the vineyard. I did go ahead and plant a cover crop. I went with an alternative row format one row is two types of clover (crimson and subterranean) and then the next row is a blend of legumes (bell’s beans and field peas)...

This is the one I use. I originally got it for cleaning carboys but it actually came from the beer industry and was designed for kegs. Works great on both!! https://a.co/d/f0vSUOw

When shopping, I would be looking for generally clean kegs on the outside - take a wet rag with you to wipe off dust and make sure it’s just dust. No major dents which might make it leak or reduce capacity. I’d ask about the history of the keg - the best ones I have gotten were from a brewery...

@ovjock The most important step @CDrew mentioned above is to FULLY release the pressure. I witnessed someone removing the spear with just a little pressure remaining- they got a stale beer shower. If there had been more pressure or beer, it might have been ugly - instead we all got a laugh out...

Oh that’s clever. I’ve just been using a two inch bung - which doesn’t fit perfectly so I end up fussing with it. This is much more straight forward Thanks

I’m not from the area but I’ll share what worked for me a couple of years ago - I visited local commercial wineries and talked with them about what they grow, root stocks, clones etc. Subsequently, I also had email exchanges with the guys in charge of their vineyards to gain additional insight...

I’ll go with not all being complete morons AND campaign cash in their coffers. Personally, banning the sale of cold beer is the kind of vote which would have me questioning their motives anyway. Define cold - would a walk in room with really good air conditioning break the rules?

Welcome to WMT (again)

After an accident involving five gallons of wine, a glass Carboy and a trip to urgent care, I’ve switched over to using beer kegs instead of glass carboys for anything bigger than 3 gallons. I’ve found that stainless steel beer kegs are readily available in a wide range of sizes. At this...

Plans for 2024 - well, I need to learn from this year, and not make so much wine. We ended up this year with 245 gallons of wine being made in our garage, spread across 7 varietals and 11 different batches. Much of that wine - 210 or so gallons is group wine but I’m still going to end up with a...

While not directly related to self driving trucks, I thought this wasn’t too big of a digression. My nephew works for John Deere on this product… I keep telling him I’d be happy to be a beta tester https://www.deere.com/en/autonomous/

Welcome to WMT…

i‘m another doubter in the readiness of the technology. In a prior job, I was involved in some of the early self driving car work. The biggest challenge wasn’t getting the car to drive on a closed track. The issue was when the software had to respond to humans driving other cars and behaving...

Didn’t answer multiple emails - as I previously said - either.

Actually Wonderful is the largest according to wine business analytics. I would agree that Novavine is a fine and highly recommended company - but the sales rep didn’t return either phone calls or emails so I went with SunRidge which was very responsive and supportive.