Whatever you do, plan well before spending a dime

The theme for the Newcomers sessions at the Wineries Unlimited Trade Show and Conference was to plan well before spending a dime. Many vineyards and wineries err when first starting out because planning could have been better. One of those errors includes purchasing smaller or less expensive equipment than is needed to make premium wines. […]

Looking forward to more days at Wineries Unlimited

At last year’s Wineries Unlimited I had the chance to spend a day at the Trade Show. I learned a lot about closures such as the Zork (great commercial), barrels, winemaking materials such as those by Laffort and many other things from interesting vendors. This year I’m going to devote two days to the Trade […]

Weeping isn’t crying

After pruning my home vines, I caught them weeping. The teardrop glistened in the sunshine sparkling like a diamond. The weeping foreshadows the growing season. It is the first step in the vine’s life cycle. It signifies that the ground temperature has risen to around 50º F. The vine’s roots are taking up water and […]

Pruning at Tin Lizzie Vineyard

A few days after pruning my grapevines, Kathy and I went to the experimental vineyard at Tin Lizzie Wineworks in Clarksville, Maryland and helped to prune those vines. The vines were planted late spring of 2010. We used blue grow tubes to protect the tender vines. Throughout the growing season, the local deer population kept […]

Pruning the vines

We are nearing the end of a lazy winter. I didn’t do any work with my vines during the colder than normal December, January and February. March has turned out to finally warm up and I decided that I had better prune the vines.

The Dornfelder vines are providing a roof over a patio. Dornfelder […]