Bud Break Is Almost Here

Last Friday, I visited Stagecoach Vineyard so that the owner, Jan Krupp, could taste my 2006 Stagecoach Vineyard Syrah. I need his permission to put the vineyard name on the label. We sat down and tasted the wine, chatted about grape growing, sustainable vineyard practices and winemaking. He really liked the wine and gave me the okay to put the vineyard name on the label. It was a great feeling after working so hard at nurturing the wine over the past 18 months. I'm now one step closer to getting the wine in bottle.


Afterwards, I wandered though my Syrah block to check on how the vines are doing. Stagecoach is a fantastic vineyard high up on Atlas Peak. It’s about 1,700 feet above the Napa Valley floor. The soil is a rich red earth. When driving around the vineyard, you come across piles of boulders that were removed before the vines could be planted. It's truly a remarkable place and the grapes here are outstanding.


This time of year, pruning is finished and the ground is littered with the cuttings. There is also a lot of cover crop between the vines. This helps to prevent soil erosion, retain moisture, and aids in frost protection. The vineyard is all pruned back and I could see the buds starting to form. They should open up in a couple of weeks and out will pop the new shoots for the 2008 growing season. This is what’s called bud break.


Walking through the vineyards, I started to think about how grapes are one of the oldest cultivated plants. I had recently read Dionysus: A Social History of the Wine Vine by Edward Hyams (published in 1964). I think the following quote on his insight into the beginnings of agriculture is a good way to end this post.

“…It was therefore a woman who first came to the help of some favorite fruit shrub, clearing the other plants away from its roots, thus making the first distinction between weeds and economic plants, and doing the first act which can properly be called gardening. There can be very little doubt that it was a woman who, having carelessly thrown away a few grains of wild barley or wheat at the bottom of some vessel, onto a patch of ground trodden into mud by her tribesmen and women, saw seedlings spring up, and conceived the immensely important idea of planting and cultivating such grasses, instead of merely collecting them in the wild…”