Dear Friends,
Spring has arrived, bunnies are frolicking, poppies are popping and our vines are starting to leaf out!
 Our last vine was pruned March 30th and a new vintage officially began! To hand prune all 2,000 vines took us six weeks of hard work. We often had beautiful weather, crisp cool air, blue skies and showy clouds. Surrounded by vineyards and the green hills of the valley, we marveled at being able to work in such a setting. Of course, we also had days of cold northern winds and driving rain showers... it was still spectacular to be working out in the middle of nature. We're already planning next year; we're going to start pruning two weeks earlier so we can take a day off now and then!
 The opening decade of the 21st century belongs to the viticulturist: to the grower in the field. Great wine is made in the vineyard and those of us that aspire to make a great wine know that it takes a high level of personal skill and commitment. Man was still in the Stone Age when he first cultivated the vine, 5,000 B.C., and from that time until today, man has been trying to improve on the simple process of growing grapes. But goals differ; there is a vast difference in planting (and pruning) for quantity or quality. We head train, cane prune our vines, one of the best methods used to insure quality grapes. With one of us working on each side of the plant it takes five minutes to prune each vine. This is a time-consuming, painstaking system that gives us the ability to micro-manage each vine. You can't get much more "boots in the dirt" than that. We are proud that the quality we work so hard to obtain is reflected in our wine.
This year we are experimenting with our Merlot vines. The Merlot has always been ready to harvest two or three weeks before the rest of the vineyard, and while this gave us a great opportunity to invite friends over to help with the picking, it was a pain for our winemaker because the Merlot was fermented separately and later added to the rest of the fruit. In reviewing pruning and harvest notes, Tom discovered that no matter what date we pruned the Merlot, we harvested it 216 days later. The Merlot tended to bud out before our other varieties, so we always pruned it first. This year we pruned it last, to see if we could push harvest off those two or three weeks and pick and process our fruit all at one time. We'll let you know how things turn out.
 We've had beautiful weather, sun and rain both essential for growing healthy vines. But now the sun takes center stage. Sunlight on the woody parts of the vine, especially the new cane, produces a more fruitful vine. The amount of sunlight on the vine when its new buds are forming acts as a signal, determining if the buds become leafy shoots or embryo flowers for fruit. The sun determines the vine's yield and we have pruned the plant for maximum early exposure. It's sunny days as we set out on the journey that will lead to our 2010 Barn Burner Cabernet Sauvignon.
You can read back-issues of our Notes and purchase our wine on our Web Store, check it out. And as always you are invited to visit us, we would love to show you our vineyard and share a bottle of our wine with you, we'll start in the kitchen...
 Tom and Lauren Scott
www.tomscottvineyard.com
www.tomscottvineyard.com/store
info@tomscottvineyard.com
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