Tom Scott Vineyard Newsletter - September 2016 - Barn Burner Cabernet Sauvignon
 It is always amazing how quickly time goes when you are busy. This year is flashing by, and we see the passage of time daily reflected in the vineyard. We are now entering the final six to eight weeks before harvest. We thought it might be fun to review this growing season, as it gives us time to remember the year that has gone so quickly.
We've mentioned in previous Notes, that the start of a great harvest begins the autumn before. Rain in late summer or autumn allows for the absorption of water and nutrients, which allow for high concentrations of starch and amino acids. These substances serve as foods and food material in the next year, and possibly over into the following year as well. So, the rain we received in late 2015 helped determine our crop in 2016. Thankfully, after four years of drought we finally got rain!
 In February of 2016 we began pruning. This is the most important job we have, as we are attempting to balance each vine. This takes about six weeks. We work together, one on each side of the vine, evaluating the vines efforts (production) last year and deciding how many buds to leave for this year's growth. We are trying to balance the amount of canopy, or leaf growth, with the number of fruit-bearing buds. When we leave the right number of buds, we will have a balanced vine, which will give us a balanced crop, which will give us a balanced wine. It's all about balance!
As the vines begin to bud, we need to protect the new growth from frost and wind damage. We protect the vines from frost with our overhead sprinkler system in the East Block, our wind machine protects the West and North Blocks. Frost can be an issue for us until late May. We protect our new growth from wind damage with the modified trellising system we use. We have added additional wires in our open lyre system, which allows us to tuck the young shoots into a more protected position. The modified open lyre also helps us manage our mildew risk, by opening the center of the vine growth to sunshine and allowing better penetration of our sulfur application. Spraying sulfur helps hold mildew in check until the sugar content of the grape increases enough to resist it on its own.
 By August, the crop has been set and the vines turn their attention from shoot growth to ripening the fruit. This switch in vine function is called Veraison. This transformation is strikingly visible. The tips of the growing canes dry up and stop elongating, and the green berries begin changing color, from green to purple.
Veraison triggers several changes in how we work the vineyard. We stop spraying sulfur, as the sugar in the berries has increased. We reduce the amount of shoot tucking and hedging, as shoot growth has pretty much slowed to a stop. We now begin monitoring the water uptake of the vines, and we thin our crop.
Usually, we apply no water to the vineyard until August. All the canopy and berry development is the result of ground water. Any water we would have applied would have gone into more canopy development. After veraison, the water we apply will go to berry development. We want to keep the vines moderately water-stressed, as that enhances the flavors, but too much stress affects the flavors in a negative way and may damage the vine. We began running water cycles in late July and we will continue until it rains or we harvest.
Our second big attempt at balance comes at the time of veraison. We then thin our crop, removing anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of the fruit. This thinning maximizes the quality of the remaining clusters. We have recently thinned our crop, removing about 25% of the clusters. This "dropped" fruit will be professionally composted.
 Now we wait, watch, protect and water. It's hard to know when we'll actually harvest. Depending on past conditions, we've picked as early as October 7th (last year) and as late as November 5th (2010). This year we've had no extraordinary conditions, we had a warm spring and a cooler summer so far, but what's to come in these last weeks is hard to know. Based on our experience, we think we'll be harvesting sometime between October 15th and 25th. We'll see!
We have enjoyed seeing visitors all year, we've walked the vineyard and shown guests first hand many of the things we've discussed in these Notes. We always love visitors; the world comes to us, because as you can see for most of the year, we're boots in the dirt.
We send out a thank you to all of our wonderful customers that share their Barn Burner and TSV stories, and encourage friends to visit us. We appreciate your support; we wouldn't be able to do this without you. We'll keep you posted on the harvest!
Cheers!
Tom and Lauren Scott
www.tomscottvineyard.com
www.tomscottvineyard.com/wineshop
info@tomscottvineyard.com
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