Jeff White

Wine dinner at home with friends: 1996 Laurent-Perrier Champagne - almonds, yeasty, green apple with some pear. Crisp and exciting. A great start. 2007 Linden Avenius Chardonnay - All tasted blind but me. "Chardonnay acting like a Sauvignon Blanc, Chablis?", Both comments right on. Steely and mineral, crisp tree fruit, lengthy clear finish. 2009 Glen Manor Hodder Hill barrel sample blend - main reason for get together, 63% CS, 27% Merlot, 5% CF, 5% PV, group comments: blue and black berries, judicious amount of toasty oak, good length of fruit flavor and tannic structure. Now ready to assemble the blend. 2005 Chateau De Barbe Blanche, Saint Emilion - 65% Merlot, 25% CF, 10% CS, soft and fleshy, aroma quite similar to GMHH, very supple sweet velvety tannins. 2005 Girard Artistry Napa Valley - 54% CS, 22% CF, 14% PV, 9% Malbec,1% Merlot, Robust and tannic, heat, loads of red fruit but needs 10 more years. 2000 Brunello Di Montalcino - complex and layered, raisons, leather, stewed stones fruits, with refreshing acidity especially at this point in the evening. 2002 Huber Eiswein Austria - 100% Riesling, very crisp acidity and minerally with sweet apples, pears and apricots, quite long lasting. 1 bottle to go...in a few more years.

First, I'm in my tasting room this afternoon and that being slow, am forced to catch up on office work and goof around a little on the computer. My wines tend to lean French but also exhibit some California like ripeness due to our warm west facing mountain slope. But we do not get near the heat or length of season that other New World regions have. My wines tend to have higher acids, supple tannins, fresh fruit and with the vines now in their 16th leaf, showing a little of our piece of Mother Earth. I also still have some Glen Manor that Jim Law made from 1997, 98 and 99 and these are now showing some very appealing Old World characteristics.

Well put.

Hey Choirgirl21, Here's what I think. I have but one criteria for wine. It must keep me interested and wanting to come back for more. I enjoy wine from all over the globe although cellar more old than new world. Explore the world of wine and discover the producers whose passion and dedication come through in the wine and stir you. They reside in both Europe and the rest of the wine world. And be sure to try their top level wines, as good producers declassify wine and make different quality levels of bottlings. Cheers! Jeff

July 5, 2010 Hello, Well, we're half way through this year, this growing season and this thread. Time surely flies. It seems like just the other day we were blanketed with 3 feet of snow. Now it's near 100 degrees, the ground is bone dry and all but our warm season grasses have turned brown and crackle under foot. We have not received any significant rain in well over a month. If this were September or October I would be quite happy but right now the vines could use some moisture, especially our young vines with their still very shallow roots. We do not use any form of artificial irrigation as usually in this part of the world the problem is we have too much rain and cannot turn the water off. Older established vines like in our original 1995 planted vineyard with their very deep root systems fair well during a drought and will produce exceptional fruit. But some of our young vines are now showing signs of drought stress with shoot tips no longer expanding and some yellowing of leaves. To relieve some of this stress we have begun to reduce the amount of crop that these young vines are carrying. Normally dropping excess fruit or green harvesting would not begin for another 2 or 3 weeks but this vintage is running about 2 weeks ahead of normal and with this drought we now are concerned about protecting the vine's health for future vintages. We are also mowing and weed-whacking the grasses very short between and under the rows to reduce competition with the vines for water. We are still tucking and tying although this is almost complete and leaf pulling and hedging are progressing. We've made two passes through the vines to remove leaves from around the grape clusters and will continue to do this right up until harvest, although for the moment we have suspended anymore leaf pulling until the temperatures lower some, later this week. I've made three passes through the vines selectively hedging and unless we get some rain soon, I am probably finished with this task for the year. My spray program has not come to a halt but with this dry weather, disease pressure is weakened and I am able to stretch out my spray intervals to two weeks or more. Usually at this time of the year I may have to apply my first insecticide, for Japanese Beetles. I have seen a few feeding on the vines but most are struggling to emerge from the dry hard ground so it looks like they will not reach the threshold triggering the need for any chemical control measures. Late June and early July is the time when another grapevine pest emerges from the ground, the Grape Root Borer and there are high numbers of this insect in the old vineyard. Like the name suggests they feed on the vine's roots, spending two years under ground as grubs burrowing into and tunneling through the roots and up into the base of the trunk. Over time this feeding weakens and eventually kills the plant. At this time of the year the grub form emerges from the ground, morphs into a flying wasp like insect and goes searching for a mate. The mated females lay eggs on the vine, which after hatching into larvae, drop on the ground, quickly burrowing in and commence feeding on the roots again for another two years. There are two generations and every year one emerges to mate while the other remains under ground feeding for another year. I do not spray chemicals for this insect but instead, starting in 2007 hang traps, 5 per acre, throughout the vineyards to catch them. These traps contain the female pheromone lure which attracts the males. Once a week through July and August I'll check the traps to clean them and record the number of caught males. Not sure yet whether or not this is helping but it is a good feeling taking some of the males out of the mating population. So far I have not seen a reduction in the captured males but it may be just too early to tell. I recently checked the traps just 5 days after setting them and had already captured 105 males. Over the next 8 weeks I'll probably capture somewhere around 2000. As the seasons change so do the sounds and sights throughout our farm. Some of the wildflowers that are now blooming are tiny Daisies, Black-Eyed Susan, Queen Anne's Lace, Common Mullen, Crimson clover and some Canada Thistles that I missed. Tree frogs and crickets are chirping and big June bugs are buzzing all about looking for love. We have a resident Mockingbird who perches on top of the winery cupolas and calls all summer long. I feel for the Mockingbird. They call and call for all or any of the other birds but it seems no one will talk with them and I've never seen two Mockingbirds together. Something I recently learned about Mockingbirds is that they not ony mimic other birds but also insects and amphibians. Bears are still roaming. I saw one feeding on wine berries, a type of wild raspberry, along the road and a neighbor had one break through a screen in an open kitchen window to steal some old bananas left in a compost bucket. She has also seen three mothers with a total of six new cubs. Normally around this time of the year we see bears near the winery heading towards a very large wild blackberry patch. But these plants were flowering at the time of the late spring frosts so there are no blackberries for the bears this year. I met with a Virginia State wildlife biologist to discuss possible improvements to our warm season grass planting. Apparently our grasses are doing too well and are choking out other food source plants for quail chicks. He is preparing a plan which will include prescribed burning and discing half of the field this fall, then in the spring, planting a blend of wildflowers and other important food source plants for quail and also some shrubs. This will be repeated on the other half of the field the following fall. We'll also plant small islands of trees out in the field and later disc narrow strips nearby these resting areas to establish additional food source plants like Browntop millet, Buckwheat and Partridge pea. One other suggestion he made was to hinge cut a few trees growing along the edge of the forest with this field. This entails cutting partially through the tree just until it starts to slowly bend and ease out of the forest overhanging the grass plantings. These trees will serve as protection for the quail as they move from forest to field. The one potential problem with this is that the trees and forest belong to my neighbor but I think they'll be okay with it. We will only select for cutting poor quality tree species and I think they would also like to see quail return. But I will ask before I cut. Warm season grasses in foreground: I kind of went home one afternoon a couple of weeks ago. I called my former employer and still mentor and friend Jim Law of Linden Vineyards. I asked if I could come over and walk through his vines where I worked for 13 years to just see what's new. He is, in my and many other's opinion, the most progressive and passionate winegrower in Virginia. He keeps tabs on what mainly the Bordeaux Vignerons are doing and then implements what he thinks might help improve wine quality in his vineyards and cellar. For me it was a time to walk over ground I hadn't walked in five years, maybe pick up a few things that will help improve my wine quality, see old friends and bring home some great wine. I was successful on all counts. In the winery we bottled our 2008 red wines. Both are Bordeaux style blends, one having finesse and elegance and the other being more robust and structured. We are also gearing up for the upcoming harvest, ordering barrels and lab testing chemicals and creating a long "harvest/crush to do list". My best to all, Jeff

Hello, Yes I know that I'm late posting. I'm in my vineyards during these beautiful cool sunny days. I'll post the latest installment next week during our next heat wave. In the meantime here are a couple more shots from the farm. Enjoy and have a happy and safe Fourth! VIEW FROM WINERY CLOSE-UP

Troy, So far we do not have a yearly timetable for wine releases. In general our SB and Rose are bottled in late winter following the harvest and released within 6 months. Our red wines spend 1.5 to 2 years in barrel and then an additional 6 months to a year in bottle before being released. Release date is dependent on evolution of bottled wine and past vintage supplies. We have bottled our 2008 CF and 2009 SB and these will be released sometime late this summer. We bottle the 2008 HH next week, so I do not look to release this until at the earliest sometime this fall or at the latest next spring. Thanks, Jeff

June 14, 2010 Hey! Hey! I'm early, We are plugging away during this, the most critical time of our growing season. Our daily workload still mainly consists of tucking and tying but we've now added hedging and leaf pulling to our canopy management efforts. Everything we do in the vineyard affects both wine quality and wine style. From here on out to harvest we use the canopy to shade, light, heat and cool the fruit, influencing wine style and flavor. When I make a decision to alter the vine's canopy, I'm not thinking about the grapes per se but instead I am thinking about my end product, what it is I'm really growing, wine. How I want the wine to feel in one's mind, once it is in one's eye, nose and mouth. It's similar to the process of the great photographer Ansel Adams. When he viewed a landscape he did not only see the natural beauty of the land. He imagined what he could do with his camera, film and darkroom to share with others what he was feeling about the landscape before him. What made him a renowned photographer was how he could picture in his mind his end product, the print. When we alter the vine's canopy we communicate to the vine or send signals which stimulate responses from the vine. Sometimes I want the vine to respond but other times I try to manage the canopy without stimulating a response from the vine. Hedging is one of those tasks where at first I do not want a response. Basically, hedging is cutting the shoot top off once it has expanded a certain length above the trellis. I make many passes through the vineyards hedging shoots but rarely do I hedge any particular shoot more than once in a season. I call my hedging process selective or surgical hedging for only 2 to 4 shoots per vine are selected, those that are very long, 4 to 5 feet above the top wire and are just starting to bend back downwards to the ground. Once hedged the vine's energy is redirected back down into the plant and lateral or side shoots develop along the main shoot just cut. This creates a dense canopy, restricting air movement and increasing shading more than I desire. I have learned through working with my vines over the years that if I selective hedge, the vine is less stimulated to grow out these lateral shoots. Later in the season, say by mid July I'll take a more ruthless approach to hedging as the response from the vine at that time is to send energy to ripening fruit instead of growing more leaves. Hedging is quite physical as I do it non-mechanically, walking the rows swinging a pair of 3 feet long Christmas tree shearing knives. One of the knives has a hook on the end so I use this to select a shoot, bending it away from others to safely cut it with the other knife. Hedging is also a great upper body workout and I start in the morning before the sun comes up while it is cool and peaceful and the mountains are just starting to awake. One early morning last week I was fortunate to hear a pack of coyotes way up in the National Park begin to bark, yip and howl just as the sun came up over the mountain tops. I imagined pups being excited as the adults returned to the den after a successful night of hunting. This was a treat as I know coyotes are around but seldom do I hear or see them. On a related note, we had two more black bear sightings recently. Both were older cubs just weaned by their mothers and out foraging on their own for the first times in their lives. We also started leaf pulling last week. Leaf pulling involves removing leaves in close proximity to the grape clusters or fruit zone and has a tremendous impact on both wine quality and wine style. We begin pulling leaves about 10 days after fruit set and those removed have finished their job of converting the sun's energy into successful grape flowering and setting fruit and are no longer really of any value to the vine. Other younger leaves on up the shoot will now finish the job of ripening this year's fruit. With Virginia's usually hot and humid summer it is of vital importance to open up the area directly around the developing grape clusters to facilitate drying with adequate air flow and sunlight penetration. In general shade equates to acidic or tart green vegetative flavors with astringent hard tannins while sunlight equates to fresh berry fruit flavors with lower acids and sweet supple round tannins. But it is not all black and white and much like Ansel's work, it is all about the grays. With Sauvignon Blanc one would expect some greenness and high acidity so some shade is good. With Chardonnay maybe a little extra sunlight would bring out more ripe fruit and less green apple and soften the acidity a tad. With Bordeaux reds, lots of sun is desirable. But in our heat, too much too fast and the grapes will sunburn. We acclimate the clusters to our heat and sun by making many passes through the vineyards pulling a few more leaves with each pass. Our rows run north to south and from east to west so we pull more leaves on the cooler wetter east and north side of the canopy and less leaves are removed from the hotter west and south sides. We also start by only pulling leaves from under and in between the clusters, leaving leaves above as protection like an umbrella or cap from the summer's intense sun and heat. Later, in September and October as the earth tilts towards the north and the sun's rays are less intense we remove leaves from above the clusters and on the west and south facing side of the rows. In the winery we started our blending trials of the 2009 red wines. From 20 barrels we are assembling 3 wines. First, we focus on our Cabernet Sauvignon based Bordeaux style blend labeled Hodder Hill, named after our vineyard and later 2 varietal wines, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. 2009 marked a bit of a departure from previous year's red wine making in that we performed more extended maceration or letting the grapes continue to soak in the fermented wine for an extended period of time. This creates more intense, structured and concentrated wines. Petit Verdot, a grape which provides ample tannic structure and depth to the blend, played a significant role in our past Hodder Hill vintages, usually around 15% of the wine but with 2009 only 5% was used as the Cabernet Sauvignon had enough mid-palate weight and structure to stand tall on it's own. "Wine is sunlight, held together with water" - Galileo Take care, Jeff

June 10, 2010 Here are some current shots:

Friday June 4, 2010 Hello, The 2010 growing season is in full swing and has us working virtually non-stop to keep up. I even had my first harvest nightmare which happens every year. I dreamt that it was still late spring or early summer and when I entered the vineyard in the morning all of the fruit was ready for harvest, but of course I was not...panic! We are still running 2 weeks ahead of normal but much will happen between now and harvest so this could change. As it stands now, this could mean that we'll have a longer than normal ripening season which in turn could raise wine quality. Normally, flowering begins around the first of June with our late bud breaking varieties setting their fruit by mid June. As of June 1, all of our varieties except for the oldest plantings of Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot have finished flowering. These last two are in full to a little past full bloom and should be finished and set their fruit by the end of this week. My worries of wet weather having a negative impact on fruit set were unwarranted as all of our vines have set their fruit. This summer we will be dropping to the ground half of this fruit as it is way too much for the vines to fully ripen. But I'll write more on this later in July. Years ago when I was a child my parents took my brother and me to Cape Canaveral, Florida where we toured the Kennedy Space Center building used to construct rockets. This is a very tall and large building and I remember the guide saying that the building is constantly being painted. Once finished it is time to start again at the beginning. This is how we work our vineyards in the summer, going from block to block to block and back again tucking and tying. Once all of the blocks have been tied it is again time to start at the first block. From mid May through mid August this is our main task but in about a week two additional tasks will be thrown into the mix. Again I'll write more on this later, as it happens. Last week I mowed for the first time this season our new vineyard plantings and my crew, using weed whackers cut all of the grass under the vines where my mower cannot reach. We also had just made a pass through tying and now it is quite pleasing to the eye. We are currently working on the original plantings and should finish by early next week...just in time to start back again in the young vineyard. It's been a hot time spraying lately. When spraying, I must wear over my clothes a white plastic overall suit with a hood, elastic ankle and wrist cuffs plus rubber boots and gloves, an enclosed helmet with it's own filtered air supply fed by a motorized fan and hose attached to my waist and plugged into my tractor. I start early in the morning while it's cool but do not finish until noon or a little after. A couple times last week when the temperature reached into the 90's I could feel myself overheating and getting a little light headed so I had to come down twice, take off my helmet and suit, drink some cold water and even run the hose over my head and back. After a few minutes I could return and finish the job. I probably lose 5 to 10 pounds in water because afterwards my clothes are drenched and seem to weigh an extra 5 to 10 pounds. I'm also usually whopped for the rest of the day. Now is the critical time to protect the developing fruit from disease. For the next 4 to 5 weeks I will be out on my tractor spraying every 7 to 14 days, depending on the amount of rainfall. If I can get the fruit and vines through this period disease free, which has always been the case since 1995, I can put the sprayer away for the season about 30 to 45 days before we begin harvesting. So far this season I have only applied fungicides, neither herbicides nor insecticides have been required. We've been monitoring grape berry moth levels in the developing fruit clusters which are around 2% infected in the interior of the vineyard and 6% around the perimeter. If these levels rise to around 15% I may have to take action. My nephew Jack worked with me a couple days recently. We started out in the early morning walking all of the pastures hoeing thistles. I enjoy doing this although I'm not sure he was as thrilled. When finished our pants were soaked from walking through waist high grasses still wet with dew. In the Ken Burns Civil War documentary there was a veteran who after the war went home to "wage war on the standing corn". Well I enjoy waging war on my standing thistles. Later that morning Jack helped me collect petiole samples from various vineyard blocks. A petiole is the little stem which connects a leaf to a shoot and is collected, dried and sent to a lab in Richmond for analysis to discover what nutrients the vines might be deficient. We collect petioles at bloom and remove the leaf and petiole opposite the lowest flower cluster on a shoot. Walking through a planting, 15 vines are chosen at random and 10 petioles are selected from each vine giving us 150 petioles as representative of the block, usually just one acre and always by variety. After receiving the results I will make soil amendments, usually just a little nitrogen and/or phosphorus, in the next few weeks. Next, we spent the afternoon in the cellar tasting through the 2009 red wines in barrel. Jack just turned 21 so can now legally taste his family's farm product. I'm going to start blending trials next week so I wanted to taste through these wines one more time to better understand them, their potential and their needs. After opening all the barrels to taste, the barrels were topped off or filled full. These barrels had not been opened since early April and each had lost around 2 bottles worth of wine through evaporation. I keep 1, 3 and 5 gallon glass containers of wine in the cellar just for this purpose. Usually when working in my vineyards I'm surrounded by the noise of my tractor, mower or sprayer, although I do wear earplugs. So when I'm not on my tractor and am doing something else, it's a joy just to be working from my feet and to be able to hear all of the sounds of the countryside. Mostly what I hear are birds. The other day I was being serenaded by many and in particular a mocking bird, one of my favorites, singing all of the other bird's songs. We are also greeted every year by returning barn swallows that nest under the exposed upper floor joists of our bank barn. They fly through the air, twisting and turning, darting here and there like acrobatic stunt pilots. When I am mowing it doesn't take them long to find me and start circling and diving at all the insects disturbed by my passage. They also make sounds similar to those made by dolphins, so similar in fact that I believe these two species if ever they could meet might be able to communicate with one another. Later this summer the adults will take their young out for flying lessons and in between flights, the family will be all lined up resting on our vineyard trellis wires. Black bears are starting to venture out and we saw two last week just outside the vineyard fence walking along the forest edge. A couple of my neighbors who operate bee hives in their backyards have also had bruin encounters lately. June is black bear mating season and when females who are receptive to mating, wean off their two year old cubs. So males are out seeking females and females are out seeking males and cubs are out searching on their own for a territory in which to live. It seems bears are everywhere. I went off the farm twice since my last writing, first to a grower meeting at a neighboring vineyard and later to a vintner's dinner. Every growing season two people from our industry, an agriculture extension agent from Rappahannock County and our state Professor of Viticulture, put on a series of grower meetings at vineyards throughout the state to discuss current vineyard issues or problems as the season unfolds. These meetings are very informative and useful and I try to attend all within a hours drive from my farm. These meetings are also my only chance during the growing season to see how other vineyards are doing and to meet and talk with my fellow winegrowing friends. On Saturday, May 23rd, I participated in my first vintner's dinner. Actually it was a cooking demonstration at noon by Chef Jacques Haeringer of L'Auberge Chez Francois in Great Falls followed by the meal which he demonstrated. My wines were well received and paired well with Jacques cuisine. He is quite affable and entertaining and I was kind of the straight-man. During the cooking demonstration the guests enjoyed a glass of our 2008 Sauvignon Blanc. Then, for the first course grilled prawns on an exotic salad of orange, grapefruit, mango and avocado was paired with our 2007 Sauvignon Blanc. A fresh and crisp green salad followed this and then a very refreshing palate cleanser of lemon sorbet with whole vanilla bean. The main course was a succulent grilled fillet mignon in a red wine broth with little pearl onions, potatoes and peas. The red wine used for the broth and paired with this course was our 2007 Cabernet Franc. Lastly, Chef Jacques made Strawberry Napoleon with crushed black pepper for dessert. I do not often leave my farm during the growing season but it has been an honor to have my wines served at the Haeringer's restaurant and this day of course was quite special for me. Until next time, Jeff

Thursday, May 20th 2010 Hello, Much to write about as it's been quite an event filled couple of weeks. I began writing this on a rainy Monday afternoon, a little rundown after a particularly exhusting 3 days and 3 nights during which I slept only about 12 hours total. Up at 3am and to bed a little past midnight. With all this weeks rain in the forecast our vineyards needed to be protected so I was on my tractor spraying every morning and then as luck would have it, driving to Mount Vernon in the afternoons for evening wine tasting events arranged back during the winter. The tasting event was well worthwhile, the vineyards are safe and now I have a few rain filled days to catch up on office work including this post. As a rule I do not participate in wine festivals for it takes me and my focus away from my beloved farm and vineyards but this event held twice a year at our nation's first President's home is one for which I made an exception. Set in his backyard overlooking the Potomac River, it's 3 fast hours of Virginia wine tasting and buying for about 1500 attendees each night for 3 straight nights. Held in May and October only 18 out of our 160 Virginia wineries participate, all chosen through a lottery except for a handful, grandfathered in from the early days of the event. For me it provided a venue to showcase a couple of our wines to people who may not have known about us before and hopefully will now pay us a visit here on our farm. Luckily for me we were chosen for the spring event. The October event would not be doable with harvest and crush commanding all of our labors, energy and attention. Frost; Glen Manor Vineyards dodged another big one. If you have not heard, a frost event on Monday morning the 10th damaged several Virginia vineyards exposed foliage and fruit. We were also cold that morning, around 30 degrees and I did see just a few vines with singeing around the edges of some leaves but we had no commercial loss of fruit. Once again a little luck and our high mountain side site helped to protect us from an otherwise catastrophic event. A few recent photos: We have finished all of our shoot thinning and are now focused on keeping the shoots growing straight up through the trellis wires and not crisscrossing thus shading one another. This means that for the rest of the spring and summer we will be making multiple passes through all of the vineyard blocks tucking and tying the shoots to the wires. This work can become monotonous but it is very important for wine quality and once finished a block looks particularly well managed and beautiful...well at least for a few days until the shoots grow out some more. On May 13th, flowering began about two weeks earlier than normal, resulting from this year's early bud break. A 2008 planting of Cabernet Franc and Merlot are in full bloom with some older blocks in partial bloom. Grapevine flowers are not anything of real beauty to see though they are quite fragrant, producing a honeysuckle like aroma. Many times I will know that flowering has begun even before I enter the vineyard, just by the sweet scent in the air. The flowers are self pollinating requiring only a little dry wind. Unfortunately rain during flowering can interfere so I am concerned about the wet weather we are now experiencing and how it may affect these early flowering varieties. I will update on my next post after I see the percentage of fruit set. From bud break through harvest the first thing I do in the morning is check the weather, mainly looking for rain. I check multiple internet sites and watch the local news for their weather report. Later as harvest approaches I monitor this internet site, http://www.crownweather.com/?page_id=29 that tracks tropical depressions as they form off the west coast of Africa. During the growing season rain is the catalyst for mildews to grow on our leaves and fruit. To protect all of our green tissue it must be sprayed with fungicides. We minimize applications by keeping the canopy thin and open, exposing the fruit and leaves to sunlight and drying breezes. Some growers spray before a rain and some wait and spray after the rain as the water washes off much of what was applied. I like to but cannot always spray just before a rain so the mildew cannot get a foothold and then reapply just before the next rain system arrives. The ground is dry and firm before the rain and soil compaction from my tractor is a major concern. Right now I am without one of my tractors. While operating it last week in the early morning I noticed the headlights were dim and an electircal warning light was on. Not being a particularly skilled mechanical diagnostician and with much other work to do and knowing I also had a diesel fuel leak that I've been unable to stop, I sent it off for repairs. I'm now nervously awaiting it's return. Our set up here is a little different than most wineries in that the winery is not located amongst our vines. The vineyards are up high on the mountain side and our winery is located in one of our lower pastures about a quarter mile away and 300 feet below our vineyards. However our vineyards are in view across our farm from the winery. The 26 acre field surrounding the winery once was an apple orchard originally set out by my great-grandfather in the early 1900s. There are only a few apple trees left now and about ten years ago my father and I put this parcel into a federal program called WHIP, Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program. This program was created to re-establish habitat for and to encourage the return of Virginia's bobwhite quail. Once plentiful on our farm when I was young, I have not seen one in decades. In a large portion of the field we changed over from non-native cool season grasses like Orchard grass and Kentucky 31 Fescue to native warm season grasses like Indian Switchgrass and Bluestem. These grasses grow in small clumps and to heights of more than 7 feet producing a very large seed head at the top. The clumping nature of their growth allows small animals to travel freely through the field and the tall height of the grasses provides protection from overhead predators. Winter snows weigh down and bend the grass over putting the seed on the ground for consumption and again providing safe passage through these newly formed tunnels. As part of the management of these grasses we burn half the field every 3 to 5 years which keeps the clumps from expanding into one another making passage though impossible for small wildlife. I have yet to see any quail return but it is common to see deer, turkey, bear, fox, rabbits, groundhogs and many species of songbirds in the grasses and hawks circling above them. The black bear arrive in mid to late June when a nearby and very large wild blackberry patch begins to ripen. I am researching having wild quail brought in and released back on our farm. On a related note, since the time of my childhood I have hunted game animals on our farm. Although I was not raised on the farm my family visited here most weekends and all holidays. My brothers and I even spent two summers on the farm when my mother went back to college. Many times when I was young, after school let out on Fridays my parents would take me to the Continental Trailways bus station in Camp Washington, Fairfax and I would jump on, sometimes carrying my hunting rifle, for a weekend with my grandparents. Try doing this nowadays. I grew up watching and participating in the slaughtering and butchering of our livestock so the act of hunting animals for food came naturally. Currently in my freezer at home is a side of grass fed beef from our farm and some bear, venison, turkey, squirrel and dove also taken off our farm. April and May is spring gobbler season in Virginia. In addition to rising early for chores I also awake at 3am so I can turkey hunt a little before my workday commences. I've been watching an old tom turkey strut in one of our upper pastures all season but was either too busy to try or he'd give me the slip when I did go after him. One day last week he finally failed to out fox me and after 24 hours brining, I boned him and now he is also in my freezer. He has left this world now but there are around seven hens on our farm sitting on nests full of eggs he helped produce. I hope this does not offend but out here on the farm we enjoy living as close as possible to our food source whether it's growing in our gardens, grazing in our pastures, aging in our cellars or living in our forests. Best to all, Jeff

Hi Troy, Welcome aboard and congratulations on the arrival of Jackson! On making our red blends we do not try to produce a similar blend in taste or style year after year. I'm interested in tasting the differences in what Mother Nature provides to us in each vintage. Because of our much varied seasons the wines are usually quite different from year to year. We want a blend that will hold the tasters interest, is a balance of power and elegance and will develop in one's cellar for years. 2007 was an extremely hot and dry year and the Hodder Hill blend is 63% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 15% Petit Verdot and 7% Cabernet Franc. In 2008 it was a very cool year with more typical rainfall. The Hodder Hill to be bottled next month ended up being 46% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 15% Petit Verdot and 12% Cabernet Franc. Having said this though, there is a common flavor and feel from year to year that is derived from our particular site, terroir, and from my particular way of handling the fruit, juice and wine each year. Because I love Cabernet Sauvignon and believe it works quite well here, I am aiming for a Left Bank style and so the Hodder Hill will probably always have this grape as it's largest percentage. Thanks for the questions and for everyone else out there, once again I am a little late with my latest post but I am now working on it so maybe by the end of this week. Jeff

I was a novice at my first mystery wine tasting, heck at my first 20 or 50. I did not say too much at first, just inhaled, tasted and listened to what the pros had to say about the wine. In time you learn and have a lot of fun tasting some great wines with friends. Hey! I graduated to clam!

I would only add that when you taste, taste with a small group and taste blind. We call it mystery wine. Put it in a bag and try to guess the grape or grapes, origin, producer, vintage, winemaking style, etc. Doing this repeatedly quickly improves one's palate. I would also join Don's class...as long as our grades remain confidential.

May 6, 2010 Greetings, Things are really jumping now and the weather has been anything but normal. We've had hot days with warm muggy nights, cold days with even colder nights including morning frost, a hail storm that just missed us, high winds with blowing rain and then some beautiful crisp sunshiny spring days. Our vines are responding with green shoots elongating rapidly, each with 2 or 3 clusters of flower buds. We are trying to keep up block by block, shoot-thinning and now tucking and tying the shoots as they grow through the trellis wires reaching for the sun. We've made three passes through our one year old plantings first to shoot thin down to 3 or 4 shoots of which we will choose one next winter to be the vine's permanent trunk. We made two more passes through these vines to hand weed around their base and to tie the shoots to either a bamboo stake or the first wire, depending on how high the shoots had grown. All of our two year old plantings have been shoot-thinned and a quick tuck and tie was performed in the young Cabernet Franc and Merlot. After the initial thinning I took a walk through and decided the canopy would end up being too dense and the crop level would also be a little too much for these young vines to handle so we made one more pass through basically removing one additional shoot per vine. It looks good now. This is my first look at this year's potential crop and the first crop these young vines will produce. Excitement is in my air. Here are a few more photos of our spring: In our original vineyard we have shoot-thinned the Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc and are currently working on a block of Cabernet Sauvignon with an acre of Petit Verdot still to do. We did have a little frost damage a few mornings back. But only some newly replanted vines were hit, down in the lowest section of the vineyard. The coldest air was right at ground level and these very young vines had their green leaves clipped back a bit while three feet above on the fruiting wire, the older established vines remained unharmed. During the growing season I spend one, two or even three days a week on my tractor driving every row to either mow the grasses or to spray my vines. This provides me an opportunity to see in a very short period of time how all the vines are doing and to pinpoint blocks that need the most attention. Sometimes it's just little things that I'll see like a broken wire or cross arm, a missing bamboo or maybe a vine or even a row that got skipped from a particular task. We have already shoot-thinned our 1996 planting of Cabernet Franc but this variety tends to send out additional unfruitful shoots from latent buds. While mowing the other day I came through this block and quickly noticed that it's time to make another pass through to remove these shoots before they start to shade out this year's fruit. Now don't get me wrong, I also walk my vines almost daily to see what's what, but being perched a few feet up in the air on my tractor seat while moving rapidly through the vines gives me an invaluable overall perspective of the health and needs of our vineyards. In addition to the 14.5 acres of vines, we have 100 acres of pastures that are leased by a neighbor for his cattle to graze. Since moving to and working on the farm back in 1990 I have been on my own little mission to eradicate a particular invasive non-native weed from our land, the Canada thistle. It actually is a pretty looking plant producing many reddish-purple colored flower cones but from these comes thousands of seeds that are easily carried by the wind and remain viable for years. I will never fully eradicate the plant but at least will keep them in check and not allow whole fields to be overrun. At this time of the year I start walking the fields, first with a hoe to dig them out of the ground and latter carry a 3 gallon capacity backpack sprayer to spot spray individual plants. I also wear one of our tying aprons filling it with popped off flower heads to be burned later. If left attached to the plant the flower continues to develop and produce seed. When I first started this practice 20 years ago there were thousands of these plants throughout our pastures. Today in most of our fields there are less than 30 each year, but from just one plant can come hundreds the following year. With the exception of our tasting room there is nothing really going on in the winery. We have not yet started our 2009 red wine blending trials but I am preparing for a late June bottling of our 2008 red wines. Recently Kelly and I had the opportunity to taste some wonderful Sauvignon Blancs paired with two varieties of oysters, Welfleet and Rome Point. It was kind of a mini "Oyster Riot" and included the Grand Champion, Spy Valley 2008, plus 4 other gold medalists from last years Old Ebbitt Grill competition and 6 additional wines from France, California and Virginia. All of the wines were excellent examples but I have to admit the New Zealanders paired best with the fresh oysters. Clean, crisp, tropical and long lingering these wines were a delicious accompaniment to the cold sea water flavor of the oysters especially the Welfleets. Kelly and I also participated in Downey Selections annual Winemakers Reception and Portfolio Tasting. Held in the Hendry House at Fort C.F. Smith Park in Arlington, it's an opportunity for the trade to taste Downey's latest selections and to talk with the winemakers. Mostly from Italy but there were winemakers or their representatives from France, California, Spain, Uruguay and even one from Virginia. With all the great wines in the rooms, at first we were not too busy but by mid afternoon a buzz was circulating that the lone Virgina table was well worth a visit. It was an important time for me to not only meet with potential clients but also to taste some wonderful wines and to talk with my counter parts from other wine regions. One in particular is Mauro Fracchia from the Piedmont in Italy. Like I am, he is a fourth generation farmer but a hundred years ago while my Great-grandfather was growing apples, peaches, corn and wheat, his planted a vineyard and began making wine. I hope to visit him in Italy some day soon. Well it's time to get back outside. Cheers! Jeff

You have time and the weather is still cool enough and unless you live in MD, how about calling a few wineries to direct ship.

Hi again, Here are a couple of spring shots at Glen Manor Vineyards 2010:

Monday, April 19, 2010 Hello, I'm a little tardy in posting this update and this may become the norm as the growing season unfolds and my time becomes scarce. Glen Manor Vineyard's 2010 growing season officially began on April 4th with bud break in young plantings of Cabernet Franc and Merlot and a couple of days later in a 2003 planting of Merlot. As of this writing all varieties with the exception of a 1996 planting of Cabernet Sauvignon and a 1997 planting of Petit Verdot have leafed out. We are about 2 weeks ahead of normal due to the warm/hot spell we incurred the last week of March into the first week of April. A couple of 90 degree days and 70 degree nights finally pushed the vines past the point of no return. Because of this rapid bud development cutworm damage was minimal. I did though spend a few nights walking some blocks of Petit Verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc and picked off hundreds of cutworms. In these blocks the buds enlarged but had not fully opened, rendering them vulnerable. I was monitoring the damage daily and with no warm weather in sight to push on out the buds, I finally needed to act. Wearing a headlamp, warm clothing and carrying a plastic cup we start at midnight, walk each row and catch them in the act of eating the buds and tender little shoots and leaves. For the next few weeks our main worry is the possible occurrence of a late spring frost that could kill all exposed green tissue if temperatures dip below freezing. Since 1995 we have only experienced 2 light spring frosts in the very bottom portion of our vineyards but resulting in no real commercial loss. This area is planted with late bud breaking varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot and are kind of frost protected because their buds are usually not as developed when such an event occurs. Our vineyards are located up high enough on a mountain side where the still nighttime and morning air is warmer than air in the lower elevations and on the valley floor. Cold air is denser than warm air and thus heavier. During a cold still night this air will sink into the valley, following gulleys and waterways in the terrain and as it moves, displaces warmer air to higher elevations. As this warmer air moves higher it too cools but there is a point along mountain sides where a thermal band exists. This is where you will find cold tender fruit bearing trees like apples and peaches and vineyards planted to take advantage of this natural frost protection. If on the other hand there is wind associated with the cold temperatures the mountain side sites lose this protective property. We finished all of our cane tying just in time for bud break and moved right to other tasks as we watched the buds open and tiny leaves unfurl. The next tasks on our list were to flail mow the vineyard prunings left in the row middles and to do some replanting. The prunings must be either removed from the vineyard or shredded small enough so that it breaks down rapidly back into the soil. If large pieces are left in the vineyard, pathogens will begin the slow process of consuming the dead wood. These same pathogens can then also enter through large pruning cuts on the live vines causing numerous diseases, weakening the plant, reducing it's productivity and eventually causing it's death and removal. In Bordeaux France, prunings are burned throughout the winter in the vineyards as the workers progress. One will see plumes of smoke rising above the vines from wheelbarrow like carts rolled through the vines as they are pruned. Here, after pruning is complete we attach a flail mower to our tractor and drive the rows to grind up the cuttings into very small shredded pieces. This has an added benefit of putting nutrients back into the soils for the vines to use again. I am thinking of making some changes for next year though. The flail mower misses some of the cuttings because of the uneven ground and the heavy snow of last winter flattened the canes against the ground making it more difficult for the machine to operate efficiently. We had to walk the rows afterwards to pick up the missed cuttings. So I will investigate other mechanical alternatives or maybe even do as in France and burn as we prune. At least we may be a little warmer. Every year we lose a few vines, mostly young recently planted vines that just did not make it through their first or second year. I always order a hundred or more vines than I am going to plant and then plant the extra in a nursery bed for use over the succeeding years. This year we replanted around 400 plants with over half being Merlot, my most problematic variety. I'm still not sure about Merlot's future at Glen Manor. I love the wine and what it adds to a blend but we tend to lose way more Merlot vines over the winter than any other variety I grow. One thing I have noticed though is of the vines planted on the steepest slope; I have not lost one. So it may just come down to matching site with variety, something all Virginia vignerons are learning. After pruning, the next task we perform in the vineyard which impacts the quantity and the quality of this year's wine is shoot thinning. Shoot thinning is exactly what is sounds like. We remove shoots, either unfruitful shoots or where there are just too many. In my red grape varieties I want no more than 3 or 4 shoots per linear foot of canopy. White grapes like Sauvignon Blanc and Petite Manseng can be cropped slightly higher without sacrificing wine quality. With these I leave 4 to 5 shoots per foot. By removing excess shoots we not only adjust our yields but also increase air movement and sunlight penetration through the canopy. This helps the micro climate within the canopy remain drier, making the environment less hospitable to mildews thus reducing but not eliminating the need for fungicide applications. We started shoot thinning in a two year old planting of Cabernet Franc where the fruiting wire is located just 24 inches above the ground. I designed the trellis system in our new vineyard different than in our original vineyard. In the original vineyard the fruiting wire is a comfortable 36 inches above the ground. To try and take advantage of the earth's heat during the night to facilitate ripening I lowered this wire in all of my new red grapevine plantings but it's also back breaking work to be hunched over all day long. Hopefully it will be worth the added pain. A few items to note in the winery. Starting the first of April and running through the end of November, our tasting room is open five days of the week, so in addition to all the farming activities we are busy here too. Kelly recently retired, after 25 years in the industry, from her career as a Chef. She is now our tasting room manager and winery gardener. Except for over the weekends this frees me to do what I enjoy most, farm my vines. I also recently contracted with a local wine importer/distributor, Downey Selections to represent our wines in Virginia and in Washington DC. I spent much of last year doing this task myself but again, I want to and need to stay on our farm growing our wines. Our 2009 red wines completed malo-lactic fermentation and I made some preliminary blends and moved the wines off their lees or sediment into clean barrels in the rear of the cellar for a long rest. Very soon we will begin our blending trials and assemble the final blends. I'm very pleased with this vintage of wines. We did a lot more extended maceration than we have in the past. Extended maceration is leaving the fermented wine in contact with the skins for a longer time. This results in more extraction of flavor and body. These wines, having greater tannin/acidity structure and balance, complex and depth of flavors will be very long lived. This is all for now. And remember, have a grape day! Jeff

March 31, 2010 Welcome, I'm posting this a day early because tomorrow looks to be a very fine day and I want to be out in it all day. Spring has officially arrived and much to my liking, grapevines always seem to be the last plant specie to wake up and help usher in the new season. I look around the farm and see beautiful daffodil and forsythia blooming, tulips and resurrections emerging from their beds and our large fields becoming green and filling with newborn calves, each discovering one another romping around together in play while their mothers quietly graze to produce their nourishment. After a particularly hard winter small herds of whitetail deer are venturing out into the open to feed on fresh grass sprouts. The forested mountains are just beginning to show some color and texture from fattening leaf buds on maple, cherry, dogwood and redbud trees. Then I walk through my vines. They look as they did back in late November when their leaves blew off in the first cold wet winds of autumn. Groggy and still too cold to start another year, they are awakening slowly. Tying is progressing very well. We have about four acres of our late bud breaking varieties to finish. The weather forecast shows a warming trend with temperatures around 80 for the first few days in April. This will accelerate bud development and some of our young plantings may begin to push. But the nights remain cool and unless temperatures climb into and settle in the 90's for a few days we should have plenty of time to complete all of our tying before the buds become too fragile to handle. Now is the time I take morning and evening scouting walks through the vines assessing bud development and looking for climbing cutworm damage. Cutworms are the larvae stage in the development of a moth. In early spring they emerge from the soil during the night and climb up the trunks to feed on the softening buds along the canes. Before daybreak they climb back down and return to the soil. As I scout, if I see hollowed out buds along a cane I stop and dig a couple of inches into the soil right at the base of the trunk and can usually find the fat little bugger. I'll continue to do this until the feeding becomes too severe and widespread. Weather plays a role in the severity of climbing cutworm damage. Buds are susceptible once they swell and soften, and feeding will continue until the first little leaves open and the shoots grow about an inch in length. Some years we can have a warm spell such as what is coming this weekend, which pushes out some buds. But afterwards the weather cools and the plump softened buds sit there until warmth returns, allowing the cutworms to gorge themselves for days. Once a certain threshold of damage is reached I have only two options. One is to apply a pesticide and the other which I will try first is to walk the rows at night wearing a headlamp and pick off the cutworms. My wife and I did this last year and we were successful in that I did not have to resort to using a pesticide. Chemicals can be very effective but their use or misuse can land you in a vicious cycle. Beneficial insects are usually also killed. This results in more chemicals being applied later to take care of other grape feeding pests that, had those beneficial insects still been around, would have been controlled naturally. So far this season I have not seen any cutworm damage. Buds are still too tight and hard. A few days last week were a bit too cool for cane tying so we instead worked on our two deer fences. The chicken wire we had installed sagged between posts, hanging into and on top of the hot wires thus shorting out the electrical charge. I purchased a hundred metal fence posts which we inserted in between but a few inches away from the hot wires. We then attached the chicken wire which took up the slack and kept it from causing the short. There are though still one or more short-outs somewhere so I am taking multiple walks around the perimeter inspecting every wire, insulator and staple, looking for crossed wires or wires still touching the chicken wire or the ground. One can easily walk right past a problem without noticing it so I walk and I walk and I walk. A number of years ago I had the same problem and after many trips around without success I asked my nephew to look. Sometimes all you need is a fresh pair of eyes. He hadn't walked a hundred feet when he noticed a wire running on the ground. I must have walked by it a dozen times. It's good exercise though. Being part of the Virginia wine industry in this time of it's infancy means to me that my vineyard in addition to being a fruit producing business is also a field research laboratory for the success of future generations entering our industry. As such I participate in or allow my vineyards to be used in studies conducted by Virginia Tech's viticulture extension and research leg. A graduate student was here this past week to discuss this year's study. This is the second year of this particular study at Glen Manor and is focused on the grape berry moth. This moth enters our vineyards to lay eggs on developing berries. The hatched larvae feed on the cluster eventually burrowing into the berry. The berry is then predisposed to infection from Botrytis and sour rots and can attract fruit flies, wasps and ants. Throughtout the growing season I will, on a weekly basis, be recording the number of moths caught in pheromone traps placed in my vineyards and in the surrounding forests. This study in part will help to determine the timing of peak grape berry moth activity so that I can accurately target it before damage occurs. I am also conducting my own study in the vineyard we planted in 2008 and 2009. This is a root stock/vine vigor evaluation study and will take many years of observation to come to any conclusions. Three different root stocks were grafted to our vines. We then alternated root stocks every row, so the same root stock is planted every third row. This should take soil differences out of the equation. I have not yet seen any growth differences but it should be interesting as the roots expand out and deeper into the soil strata. Ask me in about ten years. One thing we will do, at least initially, is harvest by every third row or root stock and keep the fruit and resulting wine separate to see if, how the different root stock supply the vine nutrients, contributes to flavor differences. One aspect of farming that appeals to me greatly is the variety and seasonal nature of my work. Our focus is always changing and not precisely knowing what to expect out of each day is both challenging and rewarding. Every day, events occur that change my well thought out to-do list I prepare each early morning. I'll come across something while walking through my vines or see something on the farm in need of attention. The other day while checking the deer fence, I discovered one of the vineyard gates had somehow blown open in a wind storm and a hinge had snapped in two. So my priorities shifted slightly as I needed to secure this gate before dark when most animals are active. Our farm house is supplied with water from a spring located about a quarter mile away in the forest. Usually after a heavy rain a filter in the spring house needs cleaning. I went up there to check on it and discovered a tree had fallen across a fence that keeps cattle from contaminating our water. There are no cattle in the adjacent field right now but before there are I will need to complete this new repair job. Mechanical or machine breakdowns are also a common occurrence on a farm, especially one where some of the equipment being used today was purchased decades ago by my grandfather. While mowing a field last week, one with many hidden rocks, I guess I hit one too many and broke a couple of metal support bars for a rear tire. So it's back to the machine shed for a welding repair job. This reminds me. To be a vigneron it helps to also be a good carpenter, electrician, plumber, welder, mechanic, painter and all around fix it person. Until next time, Jeff Go Mountaineers!

Forgot, inquire about only a one night stay.

Just thought I'd mention that there is a Linden Vineyards wine dinner this Saturday night at The Inn At Vaucluse Spring in Middletown Virginia, http://www.vauclusespring.com

March 15, 2010 Hello, As I write early on this Monday morning the rain has finally stopped. It had been raining since Thursday night. Before the rain began, sunshine and moderating temperatures were slowly melting away our snowpack and almost all had vanished from the lowlands. However the higher elevations of the National Park Mountains surrounding our little valley were still covered in snow. These mountains were obscured from view by dense rain clouds until this morning and now all but the north face of a 3400 foot high mountain are bare of any snow. On Saturday raging waters were full as this trapped moisture was being released much too quickly. There were streams of flowing water through field and forest where usually there are none. All of the normally small creeks were full and out of their banks and Gooney Run which leads this valley's water down to the Shenandoah River was a brown frothy torrent with water way out of its banks and threatening some nearby homes. One of our gates got washed away. It was hanging across a small stream and stopped cattle from following the water under the state road and into a neighbor's backyard. With the ground now saturated, when this spring's heat really arrives and bud break occurs our vines will explode with growth and we will be running fast to keep up. And spring is certainly on its way. Since my last entry, I have seen and heard flocks of Canada geese flying high in the sky heading north, saw some sap dripping from a few one year old vines, heard my first of the season wild turkey gobble and on the evening of March 12th heard spring peepers across the road from our winery entrance. It's looking like we are anywhere from 3 to 5 weeks away from bud break in our young plantings and early starting varieties. We have all but finished pruning, with only five more rows of our oldest planting of Cabernet Sauvignon to go. With the warm days we've had recently I shifted our efforts to laying down and tying canes. When the weather cools again we'll go back to finish pruning the Cab. We have finished tying four and a half acres of one year old plantings and also one acre of two year old Cabernet Franc vines. I previously wrote that pruning is the most relaxing task I perform in the vineyard. Tying has to be the most serene and satisfying. Serene because after a cold quiet winter the weather has warmed and the air is again abundantly filled with the sounds of life. All day long we quietly work and witness the rebirth of nature. After pruning a block, the canes are all over the place, with most sticking up in the air in a multitude of angles and directions and many flopping low to the ground, looking very unkempt. Tying is satisfying because once a block has been tied, I look back over to see the order and the balance of the vines, the slowly awakening canes seemingly suspended horizontally in air, all in nice parallel lines, my mind becomes calm, knowing that we are ready, awaiting only the sunlight's warmth to continue. Laying down and tying grapevine canes requires bare hands so we need warm days to be comfortable. Sometimes we will prune in the morning and tie in the afternoon but the weather has been cooperative and we are ahead in our pruning so now we are tying all day long. We use four items to tie, binder twine, thin copper wire, our pruners to make fine adjustments to cane lengths and a capenter's cloth apron to carry our supplies. The binder twine is used to loosely secure the trunks vertically to a bamboo stake which leads up to a horizontally running fruiting wire of the trellis system. Along this wire the cane is wrapped very tightly around and secured at its end using a short length of copper wire. This wire is very pliable and quite a bit thinner than a paperclip. The canes must be wrapped tightly. If not, once the shoots lengthen but before they reach the first foliage wire their weight in the wind can cause the cane to rotate resulting in the shoots heading down towards the ground and causing extra work for us to correct at a time we need no extra work. Last week my nephew was home for college spring break and worked a few days on the farm. He and I spent a couple of days finishing the retrofitting of one of our vineyard's deer fence. The fence is electrified and encloses about twelve acres. Recently I watched as deer slipped through the fence at will. Apparently the fence's electrical charge was grounding out somewhere plus there were a few gaps in the recently installed chicken wire. After stitching closed the holes we walked the fence and found two places where the chicken wire was making contact with the hot wires, thus shorting out the fence. Electrified fences are high maintenance, requiring daily inspection and repair. They are not exclusionary fences but rather training fences. As deer approach an obstacle they'll first try to go under, then through and finally over the obstacle. The wires of an electrified training fence are set apart so that the deer will try to go through. Instead they receive a little shock and hopefully learn to stay away or go around. Some vineyard owners are now installing eight foot tall plastic or metal mesh fences which exclude deer. But I am also growing winegrapes in bear country and electricity pulsing through my fence is a must. This is my 17th year growing winegrapes and I've learned much over the years. There are now two separate vineyards on our farm, one established in 1995 and the other established in 2008. These are very different vineyards, resulting from what I've garnered from my site through the years and from how winegrowing has evolved all over the world. Before we planted in 1995 soil samples were collected and tested. The soils were quite fertile, not what you really want for producing premium wine. But the soils were also very well drained and the site had about a 15% slope which would also help to shed some of the water. Back then the thinking for a potentially moderately vigorous site was to space the vines wide apart and make each grow large to fill a very large trellis area thereby reducing their energy. This did not work. We failed to take into account the large area from which the vine had to spread its roots and gather water and nutrients. Also in 1995, we kept the vineyard floor directly below the vines weed free reducing competition from other plants. This was also a mistake. Finally we did not pay too much attention to root stock selection. Having too much water and how to quickly evacuate it from our vineyards is the single largest challenge to growing premium winegrapes in this part of the world. Our new site is planted on a 30 to 40 percent slope which during a rain rapidly sheds water off the mountain side. To control erosion and to compete with our vines for nutrients and water we have left the entire vineyard floor planted with a mix of slow and low growing grasses. The soils in the new site are less fertile and have a much higher rock content than the original site. When you have more rock you have less soil and more avenues for water to travel through the soil. So less soil means lower nutrient levels and lower water holding capacity available for the vines. The spacing of vines in our original site is 12 by 8, 12 feet between rows and 8 feet between plants within the row. The spacing in our new site is 8 by 4, that's 454 versus 1362 vines per acre. More vines per acre competing with each other for limited resources. I am now inter-planting vines in my original vineyard to double the vine density and have established permanent covercrop grasses under the vines to lessen their vigor. The rows in the original vineyard run across the slope, for safety reasons only, and each row acts as a little dam slowing the movement of water. While in the new vineyard the rows run with the slope, up and down, and I bought an Italian made track-tractor to farm this site safely.This is so, to once again help water to move off the site quickly. Lastly, the vines in our new site are grafted onto low vigor or growth restricting root stocks that help to hold back much of their excessive vegetative growth and keep the plants small. A grape's flavor and structure profile is derived mostly from its skin. The pulp or interior of the grape is mostly water. Smaller vines produce smaller berries. Smaller berries means a higher skin to pulp or juice ratio thereby concentrating more flavor in that juice. Keeping the vines small, directing their energy not to producing excessive leaves and shoots but to producing small berries results in a more flavorful and engaging wine. Through the years to come it will be both interesting and fun as I grow wine from both sites, keeping the lots separate, tasting their differences and learning even more of each vineyard site. I believe there is a great future for Virginia viticulture along her steep mountain sides. These sites are difficult and expensive to develop and farm but the potential for world class wines coming from these areas is tremendous. Cheers! Jeff

March 2, 2010 Hello again, Before I get started let me say please hang in here. Winter is dragging and things are a bit slow right now and maybe not too interesting reading. But believe me, spring is on the horizon and with it comes much more and varied activities both in our vineyards and across our farm. The tempo really quickens once the heat of summer sets in. Ending with our grand finale in autumn called harvest and crush. The only thing that may not change during the year is my inspiring, thought provoking, Pulitzer Prize worthy and of course humble writing style...or lack there of. Since I last wrote, the white of snow is still prominent but grassy spots are quickly starting to appear and enlarge, especially on exposed south and west facing slopes. We or I should say my guys are back in the vineyards pruning. I plan to be back in soon. They are down to having just one and a half more acres to go and then we'll start through the entire vineyard again wrapping and tying down all the fruiting canes on the trellis wire. At this time of the year I watch for and take note of the first signs of spring. These signs help me to determine when our budbreak might occur, thereby allowing me to prioritize tasks and to rough estimate flowering and harvest dates. I keep a log of when such signs appeared and the date of budbreaks from past springs. I can then compare years and make an educated guess. Some of the signs I look for are, Canada geese flying north, the appearance of migratory songbirds, emerging daffodils, the mating call or gobble of the American wild turkey, little white colored wildflowers pushing up through the cold soil under the vines, a particular patch of grass at one spot along our state road that turns green and starts growing before other surrounding grasses, the morning and evening singing of spring peepers, (a tiny chorus frog) and finally, the sap starting to flow and drip from pruning cuts on our vines. So far this year, on February 25th I noticed the first chirps of returnng migratory songbirds on the farm and on February 28th I saw daffodil shoots poking through the ground. Right now it seems that budbreak will be later than usual this year. But all it takes is 5 or 6 straight days of 70 to 80 degree temperatures to accelerate things and this is not an uncommon occurrence around these parts. On a side but related note, one early morning the other day I saw a pair of coyotes traversing a snow covered field just below our vineyards. Coyotes mate for life so seeing them together isn't a sign of spring, just a rare wildlife sighting I am privileged to witness every now and again while farming and living close with nature. As I mentioned above, I have not made it back out to prune since the last big snow. My focus has been on preparing for our late winter bottling which occurred yesterday and all went quite well. Bottling is an exercise in organization and administration. Leading up to and including bottling day can be very stressful; getting the wines ready, ordering the correct amount of bottles, corks and capsules, having artwork completed for the labels, then working with the printers on the production and also getting TTB and ABC to approve the labels. At the end of bottling day I exhale a huge sigh of relief and feel a quiet satisfaction with having the wine safely in bottle. We also end up with some "E" wine or employee wine. I give this to my employees and take some home for myself. This wine comes from either the first case through the bottling line which has been diluted a bit with water used during the cleaning phase or when we chase one wine with another wine, the first case will be a blend, like now I have a few bottles of Sauvignon Blanc/Rose. Interesting but I won't sell it. Bottling does nothing to help nor enhance the wine. If performed correctly the wine is not any better, but if not, the wine can be harmed. Microbial contamination and oxygen pick-up in the wine are the two challenges while bottling. To protect the wine I add sulfites just prior to bottling. Some of these will bind with any oxygen entered into the wine before it has had a chance to react and cause harm. What does not initially bind helps to keep the wine fresh and alive while it continues to develop in bottle and will also bind with oxygen as it ever so slowly enters through the cork over the years to come. To reduce the amount of oxygen pick-up and eliminate the chance for contamination, I rely on a professional bottler to bottle all my wines. He shows up here towing a self contained mobile bottling line inside a semi-trailer. All I do is provide water for his steamer machine and bottle rinser, electricity for lights, wine, bottles, capsules, corks, labels, membrane filters, cylinders of CO2 and labor to feed empties and to take off full bottles of wine. Any part of the bottling line which will come into contact with my wine is first sterilized using steam for 20 minutes. After rinsing the bottles, a vacuum removes oxygen and an inert gas, carbon dioxide is injected just before the bottle is filled with wine. Finally CO2 is injected once more on top of the wine just as the cork is inserted. The bottler, well aware of my angst and premature graying hair, carefully prepares, maintains and monitors his bottling line to insure that what I have in tank ends up the same once inside the bottle. During the winter in addition to pruning, equipment maintenance, projects and taking a holiday, it is also the time to meet with industry people at technical meetings and trade shows. In March I will travel to Charlottesville to attend the Virginia Vineyards Association's winter technical meeting and later, to Wineries Unlimited, an east of the Mississippi viticulture and enology industry trade show and technical seminar in Pennsylvania. Both meetings help to keep me up to date with the latest developments, research and technologies and also to reacquaint with industry friends and colleagues. At the VVA meeting I will participate on a panel discussion and wine tasting about growing and making Sauvignon Blanc in Virginia. In anticipation of the Charlottesville trip I have scheduled some appointments and will spend one day pouring my wines at a few area restaurants and wine shops with the hopes of opening up some new accounts. This is all for now and please let me know the date you first hear spring peepers singing in harmony. Best to you, Jeff

Sunday February 14, 2010 Hello, Not a whole hell of a lot to write about other than, and I'm sure everyone is sick of the topic, but snow, snow, snow and even more snow. We received 23.5 wet and heavy inches, followed by and instead of the forecasted 10 to 20, only 5 additional inches a few days later. I have always been a winter person, enjoying winter camping, snow skiing, hiking, ice climbing, ice fishing, ice hockey, what have you, but I have to admit I'm quickly tiring of this one. Deep snow can be both positive and negative in a vineyard. On the positive side it acts as a thermal blanket protecting that portion of the vine which is covered, from a severe cold temperature event. If such an event should occur in the next couple of weeks while the snow is still deep, only the exposed part of the plant might be damaged resulting in a loss of this year's crop but not the loss of the entire plant. On the other hand we cannot prune what we cannot see. So now the pressure level is starting to rise. We might loose a couple of weeks pruning time while we wait for most of this snowpack to melt. Fortunately there are some projects and other maintenance jobs we can work on while we watch the skies and hope for some warmer and melting temperatures. This past Thursday, after missing four days of work my employees were finally able to drive to our farm. We spent the next two days, first clearing snow off the winery walkways and crushpad and the farmhouse upstairs porch and walkway and then cleaning mold growth off the walls and floors of the tank room in the winery cellar. Mold thrives in this dark, cool, wet environment and must be attended to constantly. To clean anything and everything in the cellar we use sodium percarbonate, an oxidizing agent and an ingredient in the eco-friendly bleach products such as OxiClean. Dissloved in water it releases hydrogen peroxide and soda ash. With a little bit of elbow grease it does a terrific job and is environmentally safe. Well, as I wrote above, besides snow there has not been much to write about so I will end for now. This is a short month and we will be bottling on March 1st so will wait to update this thread again until the 2nd or 3rd. Take care and be happy, Jeff

Desperados in Georgetown. Popular with us northern VA youths in the 70's.