Tom Scott Vineyard Newsletter - August 2019 - Barn Burner Cabernet Sauvignon
August is always a very busy and pivotal time at Tom Scott Vineyard. It marks the end of the beginning, and the beginning of the end of this year's vintage.
 From pruning in the spring until August, the vines have focused on creating a canopy, leaves and canes, and setting the crop. The vines flower in mid-May and self-pollinate. The crop has begun. We never water the vines during this time, as any water we put on the plants would result in more canopy, and our vineyard is very vigorous, giving us lots of canes, leaves and crop. During this extended growth period, the plants thrive on ground water found deep under the vineyard.
By August, the vines are ready to make a change. The plants' energy is refocused from producing canes and leaves to ripening the fruit that has been set. This change in the efforts of the vine is called veraison. The onset of veraison is clearly visible, as the green grape bunches begin turning black (dark purple).
At this time, several significant changes take place in our farming practices.
We stop spraying the vineyard with sulfur for mildew containment. As the sugars in the berries increase, the fruit becomes resistant to mildew, and we can end our containment program.
We will now take a look at watering the vines. While ground water created the canopy and set the fruit; the plant now redirects its focus, from leaves to ripening the fruit. Before we begin watering the vines, we want to assess their stress level. We literally determine how hard the vines are working to pull water from the ground, and based on how hard they are working, or their stress level, we will decide if we will water.
 We know that after veraison begins, any water we put on the vineyard, will go towards ripening the fruit and not creating more canopy. And while we want the plants to be moderately stressed, which gives us great flavors, we don't want them overly stressed, which can produce off flavors. So, we check the vines. Using a machine called a Pressure Baum, that compresses a single leaf, we are able to reverse the flow, forcing water back up the stem, which indicates how hard the vine is working to pull the water from the ground. Based on the reading, we may start drip irrigation, or if the vines are well-hydrated, we'll wait and check again later. We will periodically check the vineyard to determine if we should continue irrigation or pause the process. Often in past years, once we've begun watering, we continue straight through until harvest.
The third major change veraison brings to our efforts in the vineyard, is the thinning of our crop. Our vines tend to set lots of fruit, and there are no natural issues in our vineyard that might damage the crop. This results in the vines producing too many grape bunches, which prevents their all fully ripening to the quality we want. We work with a crew that cuts out, removes and composts between 20 and 40% of the existing grapes bunches. The remaining bunches will now fully ripen and give us the best possible fruit. We are currently seeing brown leaves dropping from the canes at the fruiting wire; which naturally exposes the remaining fruit to the sun, helping it ripen.
August always feels like a busy time in the vineyard. It marks the beginning of the ripening process, telling us we're now heading down the home stretch.
 While harvest is still a couple of months off, it's a very important couple of months. For us, it's like fall begins in August, as we're already thinking and working with the future in mind, while the vines bring a perfect vintage to completion.
Another precursor to fall is the bountiful crop our fig trees and our raised-bed gardens give us. All summer we're supplied with our favorite fruits and veggies. We usually eat the figs right off the trees, but we've been known to add a little Brie cheese for a tasty treat!
And of course, everything tastes better with our Barn Burner Cabernet!
Life is sometimes challenging, but then the day ends with a glorious sunset, and we raise our glasses to "Getting it Done!" It's all good!
We're making the best of it!
Cheers!
 Tom and Lauren Scott
www.tomscottvineyard.com
www.tomscottvineyard.com/wineshop
info@tomscottvineyard.com
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