05/09 2010

Continuing to rotate through the vineyard doing the WPTT (weed, prune, tie, thin)  routine with each vine.  I noticed when I was outside on Sunday that some of the Cabernet Franc vines are hitting bloom:

Cab Franc clusters are starting to bloom

When I noticed this, I decided I better focus exclusively on thinning the cab for a while so I don't hit veraison with too many clusters still on.  Managed to get 16 vines in A14 thinned, taking off 176 clusters.  I hate pulling the fruit off, but I know it's necessary to make sure I get the sugar levels we want in the end:

Pains me to pull clusters off the vines, but necessary...

Also, being the complete noob I am, I finally realized the purpose of the double catch wire system for the VSP trellis - so that you can simply tuck shoots between the wires for easy canopy management.  Putting cross bars up will be cost prohibitive at over $3 apiece times over a hundred posts in the vineyard, so I'm experimentally trying a workaround.  I added a second wire several inches below the first catch wire so I can tuck shoots between them vertically.  I think this will work okay, but time will tell.

Experimental vertical catch wire pair on A14