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If your market supports it, go with the fruit wines! Next time I drive through I'd love to try them. I started with them and they have a place in my heart. But around here, they are a hard sell. Long-term climate outlook is certainly debatable....it is not PC to think we are not going into...

I have a diverse orchard in addition to my vineyard. If my experience is any indication, with a winter such as we just experienced even growing other fruits won't cover you. I have persimmons, 2 Asian pear varieties, 2 American pear varieties, 3 peach varieties, 2 cherry varieties, and 4 apple...

I entered a 2012 Foch and a 2013 Cayuga White. I would have loved to enter my black raspberry port, which is maturing nicely, but was unwilling to give up 2 full bottles. Guess I should have called, I would have done 2X375mL. Oh well, I'll still have it next year.

I hope it works out well, but I would guess you may find that you were light on the cherries. I would have started around 10lbs/gal.

I've made several cherry wines, the black sweet cherries worked best IMHO, although there was a wild tart cherry we tried once that was excellent.

I use zip ties from the auto parts store. You do need to use them with care to make sure you don't constrict the fine. But they are cheap and locally available.

We used beer caps for sparkling wine once...on standard champagne bottles...it worked fine and it took us 2-3 years to get through the batch.

Unlike row crops, you put a lot of equity into a vineyard that you have to leave behind when the lease is up. I would exhaust any other option first.

Thanks for the replies. I know to look for them on the Oberlin Noir now, so I'll just remove them early by checking between vines. Last year I didn't think to check...they were never really a problem on my other varieties that were more mature and the O.N. just got cropping last year. The...

I've typically not had a big issue with bull canes, but when I pruned this spring I realized that they were a real problem in my Oberlin Noir. About 2/3 of my vines had run huge bull canes, often more than 20 feet long. Aside from the pain of untangling and cutting them out of the 2-3...

I grow Foch, I've been leaving about 4 buds per spur. Not a lot of years of full production to speak from, but weather-wise last year was decent and I got 5 full gallons of finished wine from 17-18 vines harvested. That's a bit lower than the production sources online will quote you but given...

So a couple weeks ago I took the chainsaw to the vineyard...it was a sad day. I cut all 20 Cayuga down to within 3-4 inches of the ground. So far all but one is putting out new sprouts, and all but 2 doing so very vigorously. The shoot attachment point on this variety is very fragile so I...

Tonight I went into the vineyard with a chainsaw. It was painful but the correct decision. The Cayuga trunks I cut off, while there were a few buds growing on most of them, had clear and serious damage even at the thickest part where I cut them off. In the long run, I will come out ahead...

Wow, amazing, so much work. I hope your production and sales are set to keep up with the output!

They are definitely in the leafhopper family. Unless the foliage damage is severe I would not worry. If it becomes a serious issue let me know, I have an entomologist in the family who will happily identify anything.

It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. What I did: -Measure out rows and plot position of posts and ground anchors -Dug holes to correct width/length/depth, put in posted. Used short 2X4s on down-lean side of posted to hold them at correct angle -Put ground anchors (in my...

I've often used it on white wine ferments. My fridge needs better temp control but I keep it in the 50s, often low 50s. While fermentation at 70F would be done in a week, in the mid to low 50s it may take 3 weeks but it consistently gets down to the same final SG.

2012 Spaniel Cellars Cayuga White (Free Run). That vintage I ran an experiment of free run vs pressed vs re-pressed grapes. The pressed won a bronze at the Indy wine competition, I sent the wrong one in as the free run proved to be the best of the lot. As a result of the ~100 year winter we...

For the long weekend, did all the tall mowing (brushhog) around vineyard and orchard, about 3-4 acres...weed-whacked rows around vines and around all orchard trees in preparation for spraying...pruned/trained the 1-yr Marquette vines...cut up and moved two large trees (hurt my back on the 100+...

Not only direction, but also conditions matter. I was given some wine which had been stored upright but also on a shelf where sunlight could hit it. Every bottle was bad.