I live in "Monsoon country" and hail is a high probability with almost any afternoon thunderstorm this time of year. We have been lucky so far this Summer. Only a couple of hail storms and they were very light and short lived.
Chateau Michaelena Vineyard
- Thread starter ibglowin
- Start date
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Mike, I hadn’t realized how mature or how many vines you have until I went back to the beginning of this post. Do you have any wide angle shots of how you fit all those in your yard and how much wine you generally get from them?
I have my vines planted in a corner side yard. Back yard is sort of a sideways cut off pie piece shape. Once upon a time I probably had close to 30 vines but I lost some over the years due mostly to drought and lack of time to properly care for them. I still have close to 20 and I have one up close to the patio. I re-did the drip system a couple years ago that had been destroyed by one of our Golden Retriever's who could jump over my 3 foot fence (to keep them out) and loved to chew on the drip lines. I would say I get ~200lbs these days if we don't get a late frost in the Spring or a crop damaging hail storm in the early Summer monsoon season. I can make 6-9 gallons out of that. Enough to play with. These vines are in thin (aka crappy) volcanic soil with lots of basalt rock underneath. The wine that comes out of this terroir is an interesting cross between a Syrah and a Pinot since I have a combination of Marquette and Noiret. The basalt rock gives the wine a bit of "rocks funk" much like the grapes grown up in the Rocks AVA along the WA/OR border. Since these are cold hardy grapes I use a top wire cordon trellis system that these vines grow best in. I basically have two rows anchored by my shed on one end and a fence line on the other end.
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