Lull Before the Storm

As like most vineyards… Winter is a quiet time of the year here at The Vines!

The vines are dormant and;

• There's no weeding to do
• There's no pest control to do
• There's no herbicides to apply
• There's no fungicides to apply
• There's no pruning to do

Yes, winter is a quiet time of the year… But this LULL before the storm is not fooling us!

We just placed an order for 750 more grape vines, scheduled to arrive in early April!

For those that have read our earlier posts from last spring (Planting is a Lot of Work!), you know that last year we planted just over 250 vines.

Well, this year we've gone crazy and have ordered 750 more vines for this year's planting.

In total, once this year's planting is completed,
we will have over 1000 vines!

We anticipate all of these grape vines will give us a good source of grapes for future year's wine making. In regards to how much wine that should produce… Here's the rough math;

• 1 Grape vine should yield an average of 10 lbs. of grapes
• 10 lbs. of grapes will produce a gallon of finished wine
• 1 gallon of wine is equal to approximately 5 bottles of wine

So using the above guidelines we can estimate, once our vines are mature, the 1000 grape vines will produce roughly 5000 bottles of wine!

Not sure what everyone thinks about that number… But to me, that is a lot of wine!

5000 bottles of wine on the wall… Take one down, pass it around…

So call us crazy, or just call us dumb… Maybe we didn't learn anything from last year.. Or maybe, we just know more and plan to do a better job of planting by learning from our earlier mistakes.

Now matter what, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

This year, we have already decided that we will not make the same mistakes we made last year.

This year, we will not pre-drill the post holes. Also, we will not drill all of the grape vine holes at one time. Instead, we are going to act more like an assembly line, for grape vine planting, by measuring, drilling and planting each vine. One vine at a time!

Later, we will come back and complete the holes for the line posts… But only after all of the grape vines are in the ground.

For those of you interested in what we have to plant this year. Here is a breakdown of the plant varieties we will be planting;

• ~200 Baco Noir Vines– Being avid red wine drinkers, we really like the wine that this red grape variety produces. We planted 50 plants of Baco last year and wanted to add to our Baco numbers this year
• ~200 Seyval Blanc Vines– Seyval Blanc is a white wine grape. It grows well in cooler climates and is a popular grape in the Kansas wineries
• ~200 La Crosse Vines– La Crosse is another white wine grape that produces an aromatic varietal wine, sometimes fermented with oak, and also used for blending with lighter wines to add body and finish
• ~200 Chardonel – Chardonel is a productive, late-ripening white wine grape with improved winter hardiness over its Chardonnay parent.  Chardonel grapes can produce an excellent white wine

So, if you are looking to get your hands dirty, and think it might be fun to work at a vineyard… Come on out and help us plant this years plants!

We'll have 750 fun moments of planting this spring… Awe, but the fruits of our labor will be very good indeed!