Young Oak Vineyards

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 54: Valentine's Day Edition

2010-02-14T15:46:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

I hope you get to enjoy this beautiful day with the ones you love. It was a wonderful misty morning here in California, which quickly turned sunny & warm (our condolences to you folks on the Eastern US seaboard and our son in Helsinki!). Well, we were really surprised to look out our window this morning and see a couple of little goats nursing under Ellie!

Yes, the prolific matriarch of our goat herd, Ellie Mae, had two babies this Valentine's Day morning, one male all white and the other a cute black & white female! So, I spent the morning cleaning out the goat barn and putting down fresh straw to fix up the place where these little guys can nurse and sleep.

I'm thinking the male could be named "Rudy" (after Rudolph Valentino and because of the day) and the black & white female, well, ... I'm open to suggestions. If you want to come by and visit our new little goats, please drop by as I will be home all week (Yeah! - Winter Break, a.k.a. Ski Week!)!

Happy Valentine's Day,
John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 53 - Now That The Super Bowl Is Over....?

2010-02-07T22:00:00.000-08:00

Hi all:

Haven't the goats done a great job in keeping the weeds down this year. I have to reward them with some alfalfa (also, they are starting to nibble on the grapevines as there are fewer weeds to eat!) As you can see the leaves are all down on the vines and they are ready for their winter pruning.

And now that the "Super Bowl" is over ... (Wasn't that a great game, by the way! Great if you were rooting for New Orleans!). Well, now that the "Super Bowl" is over, we are really going to spend a good deal of time on the vines this third year. They now all have well established trunks and we will focusing on pruning, staking, adjusting the trellis system and tying the lateral cordons shoots to the trellis wires. Also, we have to replace about 30 vines that were lost to gophers or watering difficulties or neglected or just plain died! Also, we have to start composting the cuttings! And now I can't blame not getting anything done on football. All I can say is thank goodness for basketball!

Yours reluctantly from down in the vineyard,

John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 52 - YOV Technical Update!

2010-01-24T13:42:00.000-08:00

Hi guys:

Part of writing a blog is learning how to upload photos, videos, music, make website links, etc., making your site interesting, entertaining & "cool". Many others do a much better job than I do, appearing more professional & polished, but I am still learning. Also, when relying on other links for added content, there can a bit of maintenance involved.

For instance, I had been using Imeem.com, a social network for music lovers, where one could create public playlists for the enjoyment of other users and also where I could "embed" songs into my blog from my Imeem's playlist.

Well, that all suddenly changed when MySpace bought Imeem and completely reformatted its function to fit the MySpace format. Overnight, where songs were embedded in my blog, appeared ads for ringtones & links to the music section of MySpace!

So after a little "Googling", I found MyDataNest.com, where I can now plant my selected music files and embed them back into my blog for your un-interrupted enjoyment. So, please excuse the obnoxious ads in my past blogs, while I clean up the mess left behind by the MySpace-Imeem acquisition!

Well, this gives me something to do while we are being pelted by the numerous rainstorms we are experiencing here in California!

Yours from down in the YOV Computer Center,
John

Help Haiti

2010-01-13T11:09:00.001-08:00

From one of the blogs I follow:

Details are coming out from Haiti as the day begins, but yet again that small nation has been beset with injury so disproportionate to its size and wealth. An earthquake of a 7 on the Richter scale struck the island yesterday.The non-profit Network For Good lists several NGOs to which one can contribute to help the survivors:

AmeriCares
Doctors without Borders
Mercy Corps
Oxfam America
Partners in Health
Save the Children
UNICEF

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 51 - Happy New Year!

2010-01-07T16:25:00.000-08:00

Hope you have had a most enjoyable winter holiday with family and friends! With last year's wine aging away down in the cellar, its time to start thinking about the vineyard again.

Here is my "2010 Vineyard To Do List":

1) Plant roses at the ends of the vineyard rows. These are more than pretty decorations! The roses act like a "canary in a coal mine". If a disease or a pest is going to affect the vines, it will attack the roses first. And, as the vines are more hardier, this gives me a chance to fight back before it attacks the grapes!

2) Winter pruning of the vines (every year). Got to get them into the proper cordon shape for maximum grape production!

3) Mulch the cuttings from the vines as well as from the rest of the garden with my new chipper/shredder I got for Christmas! Gotta keep it green!

4) Deal with the gophers! I lost six mature plants to these varmints last Fall! But I am trying to embrace the little buggers as they are really good for digging up the compacted soil, like mini-rototillers!

Well, that ought to keep me busy for a while!

From down in the vineyard &

"Wishing You & Yours the Best for the New Year!",
John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 50 - Seasons Greetings!

2009-12-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays Everybody:

Hope you are getting into the Christmas Spirit! And speaking of spirits, we will be racking our wine for a second time very soon. That means we will be done with the malolactic fermentation and we will be starting the aging process!

In the first racking we removed the "Gross Lees". At the end of the malolatic fermentation period, in a second racking, we will remove the "Fines Lees". Then we will arrest any further malolactic fermentation by adding a sulfur compound (SO4), also called "Meta".

As you may know, most red wines and a few whites will improve with aging. All reds and whites like Chardonnay should be aged for at least a year. Part of that aging will be done in our big carboy bottles, called "Bulk Aging". And then the "Final Aging" will be done in individual corked bottles.

So, while we wait for our wine to age, and to put you in the the proper spirits of the season, please enjoy our Sphar Family Christmas Video with wishes of fine wines in the New Year!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Years!!

Kristen, John, Scott, Katie & Suzie

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 49 - Stirring The Lees!

2009-12-10T14:53:00.000-08:00

Hi all:

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a great turkey meal, accented by a couple of glasses of my home brewed Cabernet that I was able to pull during the last racking! I may be bias, but I thought it is pretty good!

After Thursday, we had a nice "stay at home", long weekend. And just when I thought everything was on automatic pilot in the wine making department, and just like my primary fermentation process, my malolactic fermentation seems to be stuck.

It turns out that you have to "Stir the Lees", the fine lees that settle to the bottom of the container, along with the maloactic bacteria in dormant lump. Also, my cellar (aka: my crawl space) is too cool, from 55-65 degrees, when we should be around 72 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 13-20 degrees versus 22 degrees Celsius for all you metric folk).

So, after ineffectually trying to shake my 5 gallon jug of wine, I bought a food-grade, long handled, narrow plastic spoon used in beer making, as recommended by the folks at MoreFlavor! (formerly Fermentation Frenzy), four bucks ($4 US). So now I can reach the bottom of my 5 gallon carboy and stir up the fine lees (clumps of malolactic bacteria cells, tiny bits of grape skins & other solids).

In the old days they used a long wooden stick ("baton"), but wood can carry unwanted bacteria, which can reek havoc with wines. I have read some winemakers stir weekly, some monthly and the commercial guys automate stirring by storing their oak barrels on roller racks, which can be rotated automatically. Let's try it twice a month and see how that goes!

It was pretty warm a few weeks ago, the last hurrah of Indian Summer, but now it is turning pretty cold. Did you see the snow on the hills this morning! So I am trying to get things a bit warmer down in the cellar, to hopefully finish the malolactic fermentation. I hope you stay warm on these cool autumn evenings as winter quickly approaches!

From down in my cold wine cellar,

John

P.S. - Miriam Bach, our German exchange student, was almost trampled to death by our herd of pygmy goats in their avarice rush to eat the weeds in the vineyard! See the heroic video below of her near death experience!

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 48 - Oakiness

2009-11-25T20:20:00.000-08:00

Hi all:

Hey, one last thing in all these "starts & stops" of our wine making process. How do you get oak flavor from a glass carboy container during aging, you ask? Well, as I mentioned many, many posts ago (my second actually), Professor Singleton of the University of California - Davis had devised the use of wood oak cubes, while fermenting wine in large stainless tanks to get the flavor of the "Tannins" that one gets from aging in oak barrels.

By the way, that word tannin comes from the Old High German tanna for tree, you know like... "O' Tannenbaum, o' tannenbaum, how lovely are your branches..."! And there are several kinds of oak that have distinctive flavors. Our American grown oak barrels help impart that wonderful vanilla flavor you get in many of our California Chardonnays.

Well, during the malolactic process, it is suggested to add oak cubes when using a container that is not made of oak. Not only does it give you the oak flavor, but it offers the malolactic bacteria a place to hide. You can buy a package of little oak cubes (1/2"x 3/4"x 1") as you can see in my picture above. They have even calculated the total surface of a cube versus the one inside surface of an oak barrel, so yo know how much to use.

So things will be chuggin' along until Christmas, when we will do our second racking. Enjoy the approaching holiday season!

From down in the wine cellar,

John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 47 - Malolactic Fermentation

2009-11-21T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hi all:

So, now we are in a "stop" mode! Freshly fermented wine has malic acids in it that have a sour taste like you would find in the tartness of sour apples. In "Malolactic Fermentation" (not really a fermentation process, since it does not produce alcohol), special bacteria convert the sour malic acids in wine to better tasting lactic acids, the kind of acids you would find in fermented milk (i.e.: yogurt, keifer, etc.). Lactic acid also has a better "mouthiness" feel to it that winemakers & wine drinkers prefer!

There are naturally occurring Lactobacillus bacteria found on grapes, but winemakers don't like to rely on just the possibility of the malolactic fermentation occurring. So after our first racking, we have inoculated our wine with the appropriate bacteria from our friends down at MoreFlavor! (formerly Fermentation Frenzy). Part of the malolactic process is the production of CO2 gas, so we should see a bit more bubbling out of the Air-Lock Bungs!

We are allowing the malolactic fermentation to occur for three or four weeks. And the next racking is planned for the week before Christmas, so we are really in the home stretch now! But I am really tempted to pull a glass or two out for Thanksgiving dinner!

We hope you all have a truly wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with family and friends. Our best wishes to you & yours!

John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 46 - Rackin' the Lees

2009-11-20T20:00:00.000-08:00

Hi all:

The wine making process does have its "starts" & "stop! So, starting at about 48 hours after pressing, the wine should be "Racked" to remove the "Gross Lees". The Gross Lees are all the dead yeast cells, tiny bits of grape skins and other solids that have settled down to the bottom of the Carboy container after Pressing. And Racking involves siphoning off the wine from one container to another leaving the Gross Lees behind to be discarded, which you can see me doing into my kitchen sink.

I read in one source about pressing the Gross Lees to get more wine volume, but the volume of my Gross Lees is only a couple of quarts with a liquid component of a cup or two. And the reason you want to remove the Gross Lees is because the yeast cells and other solids are organic matter that can start to decay and give you foul off flavors & odors!

During the first Racking, the siphon tube should be place near the top of the new container so that the wine flows down the surface of the Carboy, which you can see happening in the picture to the left. This allows for aeration of the wine one last time. Depending who you talk to, Racking is done several more times, at intervals of at least three weeks. However, unlike the first Racking, the siphon tube is placed at the bottom of the new container to avoid aeration of the wine.

The next "start" is malolactic fermentation, but we'll save that for next time!

Here's to "Beaujolais Nouveau" for Thanksgiving!
John

P.S. - Hey, Young Oak Vineyards Honey will be available at MoreFlavor! (formerly Fermentation Frenzy) right next to Armadillo Wille's, while it lasts!

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 45: Trivia Question - What Is A Carboy ?!

2009-11-17T20:00:00.000-08:00

Well, according to WIKIPEDIA a "Carboy" is:

... from the Persian qarabah (قرابه), or from the Arabic qarraba, meaning "a big jug". You know those 5 gallon water bottles at the office water cooler. Well, for you youngin's, they used to made out of glass, and many a conversation was had around them about office politics, gossip, maybe even about work!

But I digress! Now that the "Primary Fermentation" is now finally over, the next step in our adventure is to "Press" the "Must", removing the "Pomace" (grape skins, bit of stems, solids, etc.). This is done with a wine press of which there are many different designs, like this old beauty below (not mine).

The juice that flows freely through the press without any pressing is called "Free Run". Many winemakers think that the Free Run makes a superior wine and there are those who think pressing offers some additional complex flavors to the wine. Well, I have both. I was able to collect 5 gallons of Free Run separately from 3 gallons of pressed wine, which I squeezed thru a gauge mesh.

After pressing, I transferred the wine into glass carboys. The other choice is an oak barrel, which I am leaving until I know what I am doing and will discuss in a later post. Finally, we placed an ingenious stopper contraptions, an"Air-Lock Bung", on the carboy opening, which allows CO2 gases to escape, but not allow atmospheric air to get back in. Now we can let things settle down a bit.

It ain't vinegar yet!

John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 44: Final Fermentation

2009-10-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

Well, the weather did cooperate on Saturday, nice & warm, but not on Sunday, when we had another storm front move in, bringing some slight showers, and plummeting cold temperatures! From advise of one of my blog followers, HB of Virginia (check out his blog!), I am going to resort to an external heater, of which I have some professional experience from my old days at Raychem Corporation. I am going to put a thin electric sheet heater on my fermentation barrel with aluminum foil tape. This should add a small amount of heat to the "Must". Hopefully, with a little heat, we can move along to the next step!

Spending way too much time under my house, than in my house, John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 43: Stuck Fermentation!!

2009-10-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

My initial fermentation has been taking more time than expected. In fact, I have had the "Must" (grape skins & juice) fermenting for almost two weeks now, which should have only been about a week. According to:

www.Grapestompers.com

Wine yeast is most happy when:

It's not too hot, and not too cold
There's lots of food to eat
No killer agents are present
They live in sanitary conditions
Oxygen is available (to kick off fermentation)

To make sure oxygen is available, I have been punching down the "Cap", the layer of floating grape skins, that forms on the top of the "Must". I have been trying to do this 2 or 3 times a day, once early in the morning before school (my work), late in the afternoon after school (my work) and once at bedtime. This circulates the juice, grape pulp & skins which should give more food to the yeast.

There is the possibility that the fermentation is "Stuck", which does not happen very often, but if it is going to happen, it will happen to me & I cannot rule it out. I have tried my best to be sanitary & there is not much I can do about past contamination, so that just leaves the temperature variable.

The temperature of my bubbling brew has not exceeded 68 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 20 degrees Celsius for you metric folk), which maybe is a little on the low side. It is suggested that one might warm the "Must" to 70-75 degrees to "Un-Stuck" a "Stuck" fermentation, which I hope will naturally happen with our bout of warmer weather we have had here for the last two or three days. I'll let you know how things progress over the weekend.

With alcoholic wishes & vinegar nightmares,

John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 42: Pressing Matters !!

2009-10-11T00:17:00.000-07:00

Oh my, oh my!

My "Brix" (sugar content), which measured 25.5 degrees at the start of fermentation, is now measuring 9 degrees, but it needs to drop to 0 degrees to start the next step of fermentation, "Pressing" ! And my total acid level, which was low at 2.5 grams per Liter at the beginning of fermentation, has now risen to 8.25 g/L, a little higher than desired (6.0 - 8.0 g/L)!

Arrrrgh !!!! What to do, what to do!!!!!!

John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 41: Fermentation Frenzy

2009-10-10T22:47:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

Here's a couple of shots of my must. The first shows the "Cap" of grape skins, which forms a protective layer over the wine. You can see my hand there with a military issue potato masher that is used to "Punch" down the cap a couple of times a day. The second shot shows the punched down cap. The bubbles are carbon dioxide and other gases given off during fermentation. In fact, the large wineries have to be careful when fermenting due to the large amounts of CO2 given off in the buildings.

For years & years, I have been driving by this little shop on the very edge of Los Altos next to Palo Alto, formerly called "Fermentation Frenzy" (now called MoreBeer!, MoreWine!, MoreCoffee!, More Flavor!, MoreSomething!, take your pick). One year, Kris bought me all the equipment and supplies from there for making beer. And for the last 3 or 4 years I have been popping into the place every once in a while to look at equipment and ponder winemaking. But this year, they know me by my first & last name, and they have also memorized my credit card number!

Well, it really hasn't been hugely expensive, but if I don't need another food-grade 10 gallon plastic fermentation barrel ($21), I need a pound of tartaric acid ($7.95) or just sage advise that I am doing things right ($$ priceless $$)! At any rate, between all the little things one does need for winemaking, these guys have it all, or at the least, they will have it by next Thursday! If you need anything for beer making, winemaking & now coffee roasting, checkout MoreFlavor! Plus they take their time with customers explaining & helping, which can be a double edged sword sometimes. Especially when you forgot to get enough tartaric acid that was suppose to be added before the wine yeast and you are the fifth customer in line!

Well, the crawl space under my house has been converted to a winery for the next few months. [I am actually planning on building (adding on) under our house in the future, so someday I will have a "cellar" or at least a place to store a lot of wine or vinegar.] As I had mentioned in my previous post, I have added the "Meta", and the "Yeast". But I hadn't mentioned that I had to add some tartaric acid to bring the acid level of the "Must" up to 6.5 g/L. And as things go, I hadn't bought enough acid to reach that level, so I had added the Yeast anyway just to get things going. And now I have just added more tartaric acid to bring it up to the desired level. Apparently, the acid protects the wine yeast from harmful bacteria that cannot tolerate that high of acid level.

You know, its just like cooking, you read the recipe for the first time, but you mix up the order or the ingredients or whatever and you try & correct it! And after you have made the dish a dozen times, you can make it by heart, and you might even experiment here & there. Well, I am still at that first stage, reading the recipe for the first time and making little mistakes & corrections. Having said that, wine is also very forgiving, so I still have a fighting chance to make something decent!

And the most wonderful thing is that this whole concoction is starting to smell like wine! Or at least it smells like that strange, wonderful smell I remember from my youth going on tours of wineries up in Napa, through all those caves & cellars, by the huge fermentation barrels on the way to the tasting rooms!

Things are happening very fast & we will be pressing the wine very soon, so we will have another post next weekend to keep updated on pressing matters (a very little joke)! As Nora Jones said in her song, Don't Know Why, "My heart is drenched in wine, ..., but you'll be on my mind, ..., forever."

Intoxicated from under the floor boards of my house,

John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 40: Pickin' 'N A Grinin'

2009-10-03T22:18:00.000-07:00

Hey, where were you?

I know, I know, ..., it was Oktoberfest, ..., but we had baked goodies from Ester's German Bakery & Peet's French Roast Coffee!

I know, I know, ..., there was a soccer match, ..., but we had Dittmer's Deli Sandwiches & Izze's Sodas!

It's OK, but we really missed you. But as they say, "blood is thicker than water", and my brother, Mike, and his wife, Monica, really pulled through helping us harvest our grapes, a whole 185 pounds of grapes! Kristen & I owe you & Monica big time Bro'! At least a couple of cases! (And hopefully, not cases of vinegar!

Yes, we were "pickin' & a grinin'" (thank you Poco!) last Saturday morning and a fine "Indian Summer" day it was. A little windy, but that keep it cool! My brother and his wife came all the way from Nevada! Talk about migrant farm workers! And they came prepared, hitting the vineyard with their own hooked harvest knives, which they picked up in Lodi (made famous by the John Fogarty & Creedence Clearwater Revival and now a big Zinfandel region of California) at the vineyard supply store located there. However, Mike and I soon converted to regular pruning shears after a coupe of cut fingers from these traditional instruments! Obviously, dexterity runs in our family. (Look to the side bar for more pictures of "My First Crush"!)

It took about 5 hours to pick all the grapes, but to start the wine making process it took less than thirty minutes. I had rented a "Crusher/De-Stemmer" apparatus from our local beer & wine making shop, "MoreFlavor!" (formerly known as "Fermentation Frenzy"), located near Chef Chu's & Armadillo Wille's. The Crusher part of the machine replaces that age old technique of stompin' grapes (picture Lucille Ball in that wine vat!), and mechanically "pops" open the grape skins to release the juice and inner fruit. While the De-Stemmer part ingeniously separates the crushed grapes from the stems!

The crushed grapes, now called the "Must", was collected a plastic fermentation barrel resulting in about 25 gallons of must. Because of my inexperience, I decided not to use oak barrels this time around, due to their high cost and it is easy to ruin a wooden barrel. And, at any rate, you can add oak wood chips during the latter part of the fermentation process, an idea that was conceived by Professor Singleton, who taught my "Introduction to Wine" class in Davis in 1975, giving wine the oaky flavor that comes from barrel fermenting.

Sunday, I added a sulfur compound called "Meta", to the must, that actually kills off the naturally occuring yeast and any foreign bacteria that maybe present. The naturally occurring yeast can be used to ferment the grapes, but there is a risk of getting off flavors. So most winemakers use Meta allowing about 24 hours for it to do its thing and then add back a specific wine yeast. The "Yeast", that I added on Monday, is for bordeaux style wines, which Cabernet Sauvignon falls into. So everybody cross your fingers, ..., we will see how things progress from here!

Hey Hose Alert! - To borrow another blogger's surprise catch phrase: "Have I been living under a rock!" They are actually sell garden hoses that have the following warning labels on them, "Do not drink from hose & wash hands after handling as the hose contains lead." Is it just me or has the entire world gone crazy! Who in the hell would make a hose that you could not drink from, ..., let alone let your kids play in a sprinkler, ..., or fill a kiddie pool without worrying that you are killing neurons in your kids! My wife, Kristen, came across this as we were buying some new hoses. Now we have lead free hoses around our hose. Not too big an investment to avoid dementia!

Yours from down in my wine cellar (well, actually in the crawl space under my house),

John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 39: Crush Alert !!!

2009-09-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

First thing is first,

Sorry for the last minute notice, but "THE CRUSH IS ON, BABY !!!!!" We are going to be picking our first major harvest of grapes this:

* Saturday, October 3rd

* Coffee & Mornin' Food 8:30 a.m.

* Pickin' Begins 9:30 a.m.

* Wine Makin' 10:30 a.m.

Bring your own hand shears and gloves !!!

I been using the old methods of determining the time to pick, which are touch, taste and seed color. And although I usually can tell which tomato to buy in the grocery store, there seems to be a little bit more to it in the vineyard. The sugar in grape is predominately glucose, which is about half as sweet as cane sugar or sucrose. Therefore, the sweetness difference is very subtle.

Anyway, to be sure, I bought an instrument called a refractometer scope, which uses sun light and refraction to determine the percent sugar content (by weight) of a liquid like grape juice. You know how if you put a spoon or a pencil in a glass of water it appears to be bent. That's refraction! Light gets bent (actually slows down) in different mediums like water, glass or grape juice.

Well, someone calibrated the amount refraction (light bending) that occurs with the amount of sugar by weight in water, which they measure in degrees brix. The reflectometer has a glass platform to place a couple of drips of fluid on. And when you look through thru the eyepiece, thru the glass platform, you see a scale super-imposed on the field of view. You first calibrate the scale with a sample of distilled water (no sugar there). My scope was right on right out of the box, O% sugar! Then you try a sample, in my case, grape juice.

So, I walked through the vineyard today and grabbed a sampling of grapes from different vines separately smashing them in different plastic bags. I found that the brix for all my grape juice samples ranged from 23 to 24 degrees or 23 to 24% sugar. The typical range for ripe grapes in brix is 20 to 24 degrees! So, it is time to pick, but the earliest I can do it is next Saturday!

Anyway, I have to hit the books, learn how to make wine and find all the necessary equipment & supplies to crush, de-stem & press the grapes. Not to mention the fermentation container(s), buckets, etc.! Pray it doesn't rain!

Wishing you well from down in the vineyard!

John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 38: Autumn Approaches, But It's Indian Summer In California!

2009-09-23T21:17:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

With the change in our weather, the cool mornings are sashaying with the warm/hot afternoons, and the grapevines leaves have turned from that bright verdant green of the Spring & early Summer to that more mature dark green color of the late Summer & Fall with a leaf of maroon thrown in here or there. The new season's growth of canes have turned from bright green to a reddy-brown as we start the Autumn season. The grapes, once little green balls, are plumper now, mostly a deep purple color. They are a little sweet, but they are not yet quite ripe with the stickiness of their sugar on the outside. The neighboring vineyards have put on their bird netting to protect the sweetening grapes from the birds. The birds will certainly know when the grapes are ripe enough to eat!

Yes, we are nearing the harvest time. School has started and so goes my cheap child labor! I too am otherwise pre-occupied by being employed now, re-hired, thanks to an exodus of veteran teachers who are leaving my district in record numbers, probably too frustrated with the constraints of teaching under severe budget cuts. So, I will have my hands full with the new alternative education program that I am entering. And, therefore, my efforts in the vineyard will have to be relegated to an occasional weekday late afternoon or weekend.

We still have our Young Oak Vineyards Spring Honey available in two sizes:

6 oz. for $4.50 & 16 oz. for $9.00

The bees have been busy and our summer honey will probably come in late September or early October. And if you are interested in getting your own hive, our bee man, Alan, claims that you only need a small area of the typical backyard. (I feel safe at a distance of about five feet.) Alan has placed several hives in south Palo Alto homes. Here is Alan's website again: www.getbees.net

From down in the vineyard, wishing all you out there, the blessings of the approaching autumn season!
John

Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 37: Summer Doldrums!

2009-08-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

Hope you are all having an enjoyable summer! The grapes keep basking in the sun and only require a little water about once a week. Which is good, because I am recovering from my hip surgery, I am only able to do a little around the house. I actually can do the dishes & clean the kitchen, but I have to be careful! I have advanced from a walker to crutches to the cane in record time! Now my therapist is now having me walk without the aid of anything. After I have re-mastered walking, I hope to be able to do some serious projects around the house, but unfortunately, I can't rush things. It typically takes about three months to recover from this type of hip surgery.

Thanks to my Number One Son, Scott, his good friend Frank Gage and two wonderful young ladies visiting from Finland, the vineyard is looking really well groomed! Scott & crew hand pulled, roots & all of most of the insidious weeds from the vineyard! Scott has headed back to his current digs in Helsinki, Finland to work away in the Nordic sunshine. We look forward to his next visit very soon!

If you are wondering what's with all the girls with goats pictures, in the quiet of the late morning this past July 29th, with everyone out and about on errands & such, Ellie started her delivery. We lost one little one, but two little guys survived. Still un-named, I went for the obvious like "Salt & Pepper", "Blackie & Whitie", however, I have been vetoed as to just being lame! I have really enjoyed having the goats as part of the vineyard management. However, we need to curtail our growing numbers (i.e.: Big Mac gets fixed!)!

On the bee front: Hey, we just received our first installment of honey, about 20+ pounds! This represents the work our bees have done this Spring. Our beeman, Alan, has placed another "super" on top of our hive, sort of a top box condo with frames for the bees to store even more honey. We should see another 20 pounds or so from the summer months as well. Since bees range about 2 mile in radius, the type of honey is considered to be a "mixed flower", but that would include pollen from my cabernet grape flowers, my bottlebrush, the star thistle & other weeds about, my pepper tree, not to mention my neighbor's eucalyptus and many others. So this is a great mix of all the local pollens that would really get your allergies going, especially if you live near us! If you are interested in trying our honey, drop me a line!

With delicious sticky fingers on my keys,
John

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 36: YOV Toasts the Fourth of July!

2009-07-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

Hope you all had an enjoyable Fourth of July! We are popping out with all kinds of leafy growth up here! Our grapevines are loving this moderate, coastal, cool, summer weather pattern. Great for long term summer growth!

That is generally the idea behind our vintage producing California wine regions. Along our California coasts, on the eastern side of the Coastal Mountains, are many areas that get evening & morning cooling from the coastal climate. Imagine Carmel or the Mendicino coastline with its fog, moderate ocean breezes, etc. A little ways inland we find areas like Napa, Sonoma, inland Mendocino, the Livermore Valley, Santa Cruz Mountains, Solvang (remember the movie "Sideways"), inland Santa Barbara, etc. But our California Central Valley just does not get that coastal cooling, because it is too far inland and it is generally hot there all summer long. Therefore, the grapes in the Central Valley tend to ripen quickly without slowly developing further complex flavors. Think of 100 degree Fresno heat, Seedless Thompson's, the Raisin Capital of the World!

However, I just had a Central Valley 2007 "Old Vines" Zinfandel (Zymmestry, Lodi, CA), courtesy of my good friend Tim Chou, that was just fantastic! (Not to mention Tim's Fantastic North Carolina BBQ & Sue's amazing cole slaw & potato salad!) The 2007 California Zinfandel harvest is being heralded as the best ever over the two recent 2006 & 2005 best ever award winning years, making for a perfect "trifecta"! So, that begs the question, how are they growing such complex, flavorful wine grapes in Lodi, CA, smack dab in the middle of the Central Valley, not to mention other areas like the Sierra Foothills and even Fresno!

Tim's zinfandel was grown on "Old Vines", which has two different meanings. One is that the grapevines are old, 25, 50, 100 years old or older. Mind you, there is no regulation of how old "Old" is in the wine industry! At about 50 years old, grapevines output diminish, but the quality of these grapes tend to be very high. Some large production vineyards would consider replanting these vines at this point to maintain the high volume output of a younger vine. Interestingly though, there are many small vineyards dotting California's Central Valley, that were planted by California's European-Americans' need for wine in response to our 1920 - 1933 U.S. Constitutional Prohibition of Alcohol. Originally for personal wine consumption (which was legal), many of these vineyards have survived, have been re-discovered and are now producing very high quality wines today.

Another aspect of these personal Prohibition vineyards was that they often used un-grafted rootstock (the original European grapevine rootstock), another definition of the term "Old Vines". These grapevines have survived Phylloxera, because our little soil louse doesn't like the poor sandy, rocky soils that these Prohibition vineyards were typically planted in. There are some in the industry that say these un-grafted European rootstock produce better wines than the American grafted rootstock, citing wines of un-grafted rootstock still producing in the American Northwest (Washington, Oregon), from Chilé and from the California Central Valley! (See Young Oak Vineyards: Volume 4 - Rootstock, for further information regarding Phylloxera.)

So, although these Central Valley grapes are ripening faster due the heat, their "Old Vines" may be imparting high quality flavors to these grapes either because they are "Old" in years and/or because the grapevines have original European rootstock! Check out some of these California "Old Vines" for yourself! They are delicious! And thanks again, Tim & Sue!

I wanted to take some pictures of my vines for this blog post, but I am still on crutches after my hip replacement surgery and I cannot get down in the vineyard just yet. Hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July weekend! Best wishes to all your families and friends for a great summer!

Regards from up in my bed, flat on my back, John

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 35: More Summer Fun!

2009-06-23T20:24:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

Well, summer is in full force here at Young Oak Vineyards! That means almost everyone has "flown the coop", leaving only Kris & I to tend the vines. Suzie, our youngest, is currently at Camp Full Belly Farms, an organic farm up in the Capay Valley near Davis, California. Katie, our older daughter, is making up for past sins at summer school in between runs to the beach, a couple of summer concerts and hangin' with friends. Scott, our oldest, visiting from Finland for a friend's wedding, has extended his holiday stay stateside for a couple of weeks playing "Man Versus Wild" at survival camp in Utah! Can't wait to hear about gutting the sheep with his new Laplander knife and then roasting mutton under the stars!

Goat Update: As you probably can tell, Ellie is pregnant, again! Yes, Big Mac has had his way with Ellie and we are expecting the arrival of another batch of goats in July or early August. We have currently separated Big Mac, so as not to impregnate the little ones, which are 7 months old now, old enough to be very young mothers! I will be talking to our vet about tying some tubes, so we can avoid this in the future. We are going to limit our herd to 6 (or even less), so if you are interested in a pet goat, give me a hollar!

I'll be going under the knife tomorrow for a hip replacement (some congenital developmental joint problem), so wish me luck! My daughter, Suzie, has put a great positive twist on my situation as I have let my beard grow out a bit for the summer and I will be using a cane for a while after my operation as I limp around. Given my ascerbic sense of humor, I can play "House", that is "Dr. Gregory House", the grumpy, insolent diagnostician we all know & love!

Wishing you a great summer, John

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 34: School's Out For Summer!

2009-06-15T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

Happy Summer everyone! You'll never meet an happier person than a teacher after the last day of school! And especially one that is not teaching summer school! Woohoo!!

Well, lookey here! My hand is behind a couple of baby bunches of verdant grapes! And every grapevine in the vineyard has dozens of them as well! So, it looks like we will be getting a substantial amount of grapes this Fall, assuming we protect them from the birds! Hey, this means there maybe some grape stompin' at our Oktoberfest! But what we really want to happen this growing season is for our newly established grapevine trunk to put out those lateral cane shoots we call "cordons".

If you didn't see it, my good friend, Keith Newman, posted a comment on my last post about goats & vineyards. Keith says, "Michel-Schlumberger Vineyards in the Dry Creek Valley hires a shepherd with pygmy goats/sheep for weed control. The animals are too short to reach the cordons, so leave the grape vine undamaged. When Stacie and I took the vineyard tour we found some little tufts of wool snagged on the grape vine stems."

Hey, thanks Keith! I love it! It sounds like they planned the whole scheme. I do see that big commercial vineyards tend to construct their trellises very tall, over six feet high to increase the vine growth volume. We got our goats as an after thought to starting our vineyard. And unfortunately, I had already installed our trellis's first wire only three feet off the ground. Also, my so-called "pygmy goats" can reach branches that are four feet or higher off the ground by standing on their hind legs, jumping, climbing on top of each other or on their poor mother's back!! (I can never get my camera fast enough to catch one of the kids standing on all four on top of Mom!) I'm just going to have to play with this idea a bit more! Hmmm!!! Might have to get taller grapes, ..., or, ..., shorter goats!

From down in the vineyard, Maaaaaaa!!!! Hey, get out of here you pesky goats!

P.S. - My good friend, Keith Newman, is training for a marathon team to help raise money & awareness for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). Keith is well on his way towards his goal, but every penny helps. If you can help out, please use the link below to donate online and to learn more about the great things LLS does for cancer research, patients and their families:

Team in Training

Perhaps your employer has a matching gift program? If so, please consider that option as well. Donations to LLS helps accelerate finding a cure for leukemia, lymphoma & myeloma. More than 823,000 Americans are battling these blood cancers!

Thank you, John

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 33: Mother's Day Edition

2009-05-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day All You Mom's Out There!

Hope all you Moms got pampered with breakfast in bed, spa days, flowers, chocolates, nice dinners, gifts, etc. for all the hard work you do all year round!

I am finally over the worst cold ever! I lost my entire spring break laying around being ill and I have had bronchitis every since (no fun!). But hey, that didn't stop from being in the news again. This time I'm in the San Jose Mercury about losing my current teaching job (getting pink slip'ed) due to an $11 million cut in my school district's budget (East Side Union High School District): Mercury Archives

But back here at the vineyard, since we live in a grassland/oak forest area with a lot of housing in and around, we have to be concerned with fire safety. Remember the Oakland Hills Fire back in 1991, which killed 25 people & injured 150 others. Over 3,350 homes burned down, 437 apartment/condominium units were lost and more than 1,500 acres were destroyed. The economic loss was estimated at $1.5 billion.

Weed-wacking^tmis a way of life up here in the hills. You have to maintain a clearance of any flammable materials around your home. And this series of rain storms followed by warm weather, as in "April showers, bring May flowers", has also brought a whole bunch of new weeds! So even though we have wacked down everything around our house & vineyard earlier this Spring, the weeds are back & as tall as ever! Above, you can see my new crop of thistle, mustard grass & miscellaneous weeds!

This time, as we wack down the weeds in the vineyard, we will prune off the spare trunk of the grapevines & stake the remaining trunk up to the trellis wires. Additionally, we have already trouble shot our water system, so now, all we have to do is sit back and watch things grow!

Speaking of growing, take a look at this picture of the vines on Concepcíon Road in Los Altos Hills that I took on my way to the grocery this afternoon. A month back you could see the bare spurs on the cordons, and now the fruiting canes are growing out of the spurs with a lot of vigor! I have not seen how they keep their weeds down, but notice how they keep them closely cropped to the ground.

Quite a few posts ago, I mentioned that there are beneficial weeds that can be seeded between grapevine rows. This is known as "cover cropping", which suppress the more aggressive weeds, while protecting the soil & inhibiting destructive insects. Well, thanks to Mark Vernon, COO of Ridge Vineyards, my neighbor extraordinaire, I have received an thorough report on the practice of "cover cropping" by David Gates, Ridge VP of Vineyard Operations (David also made the rootstock/clone recommendations for our vineyard). This is something I am going to try over the next winter, so that a "cover crop" sprouts up for the 2010 Spring!

David uses this and other sustainable methods at the Ridge vineyards. Checkout Ridge's website for further information about sustainable vineyard management. It is very impressive website with lots of information about their wines, vineyards and facilities. I have added a link on my side-bar as well here in this blog post:

http://www.ridgewine.com/

So, now that the growing season has started, all I have to do is watch the grapevines grow, right? That will give me a little more time to do a some work on "This Old Damn House!?" (Isn't that the name of the show?) However, I do have to fit in a hip replacement operation on June 24th, so the length of my recovery will determine when things get done. My project list for this summer runs something like this:

*complete installation of track lighting in master bedroom

*install pocket door in master bathroom

*install new slider closet mirrored doors for Suzie & Katie

*install closet organizers for Suzie & Katie

*install new front path and landing for front door

*install terraced vegetable garden

*dig my own grave & bury myself !!!

From down in the vineyard, John

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 32: Tax Write Off Edition!

2009-04-11T17:19:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

First of all, we would like to welcome any new readers who have found our blog through our new listing of local blogs in the

Palo Alto Weekly

internet website at the bottom of course, listed alphabetically. You can see what great friends I have by scrolling down towards the bottom of the blog on the right side bar. Then you can scroll back upwards and see a quick pictorial history of the establishment of our family vineyard.

While the newcomers are doing that, the rest of you are going to have a pop quiz on vocabulary from our previous lesson to see who has been paying attention!

Question #1 - What is the definition of a cordon.

Question #2 - Compare & contrast a spur with a cordon.

"What's that little Johnnie! You don't remember what a cordon or spur is! Didn't you pay attention when I explained that last time! Johnnie, how many times do I have to repeat this information?"

Hey, there are only 40 school days left till summer vacation and boy, as a new teacher, am I ever ready!

Well, we had a wonderful time at YOV's 1st Annual Easter Egg Hunt today, with many of our old friends, new friends & neighbors coming by for great Peet's coffee, great Hobbie's coffeecake and great conversations! Unfortunately, I was a bit under the weather and wasn't up to getting any pictures. But we did have a dozen youngsters invade the vineyard and find Easter Eggs a plenty. Well, actually, our two dogs made a pre-emptive strike Thursday night in our family room where we were assembling the Easter Eggs and our losses were considerable! The dogs are okay and our Egg hunters still had enough chocolate!

But the big story is that things are happening in the vineyard and I don't just mean Easter Egg Huntin'. Some of the vines are starting to bud & leaf out already. So, we are excited for another growing season after our winter dormancy! I hope all is well with you & your families and that you have got your taxes done, ..., or at least filed your extension!

Wishing you well from down in my tax write-off, .... ah, I mean my, .. ah, vineyard! John

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 31: Train that Trunk!

2009-04-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Hey, Happy April Fool's Day Everyone:

For the last week or so, we here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and all across California, have been enjoying a huge migration of butterflies coming from Mexico on their way to Canada. As they fly by, I am reminded of all the constant little seasonal changes that are going on in the living things around us!

Another daily pleasure I have, is passing by this wonderful Pinot Noir vineyard on Concepcíon Road in Los Altos Hills about half way between Gunn High School and our house. I believe this vineyard is about six or seven years old. It is one of the vineyards that inspired me to take on my own vineyard project.

They have done a wonderful job of pruning over the years and I wanted to snap a few pictures for examples of how things should progress over the next three or four years on our vines, if we watch our "p's & q's"! First look at an individual grapevine with its single mature, vertical "trunk" and the left and right "cordon" canes extending to the sides laterally. Off of each of those "cordons" are about six little "spur" canes about three to five inches long. Those "spur" canes are where the fruiting canes grow out from each year, budding out into leaves and fruit.

So, for this first and now second year at Young Oak Vineyards, we are just establishing that main "trunk". In the second and third years we will be establishing the "cordon" canes. And in the third and fourth years, we will be establishing the "spurs". Now, along the way we will be getting some fruit and we may be able to make some wine, but the emphasis in pruning for these first couple of years is in establishing the "trunk", the "cordons" and the fruiting "spurs".

As you can see in the last photo from my previous post, we are headed in the right direction. And boy, we have really come a long ways from the planting party grafted clones in the picture below that! Now, you will just have to be patient while we wait a couple of years! ..........

.......... Oh heck, I tired of waiting! I think I'll try to snag a bottle of that Pinot Noir from down on Concepcíon Road! Here's to waiting!

Wishing you well from down in the vineyard. And that's no joke! John

PS-Hope to see you at our Easter Egg Hunt !

Young Oak Vineyards - Easter Egg Hunt - 2009 !!!

2009-03-26T21:25:00.000-07:00

Come on up to Young Oak Vineyards for a good ol' fashion Easter Egg Hunt in the vineyard!

See how the grapevines that you planted are doing and visit with your fellow vineyard workers!

Easter Egg Hunt for the little ones and the "young at heart"! Come meet, greet & feed the baby goats! Check out the bee hive & taste the honey!

Enjoy some Great Coffee & Morning Treats along with your fellow vineyard friends!

Regards, Kristen & John

Where: Young Oak Vineyards, 12121 Foothill Lane, LAH

When: Saturday, April 11th, 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 noon

What: Coffee & Danish 9:00 a.m.

Easter Egg Hunt 11:00 a.m.

Why: Friendship. Can't make it for the whole time?

No problem! Drop by for a short visit.

We'd love to see you!

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 30: Pruning 101 - The First Year

2009-03-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

Well, here goes! Its time to prune, prune, prune, but first off, let's talk about the pruning shears. From the internet, books & videos, I learned that the best kind of pruning shears are the scissors type or by-pass shears. The other kind have a blade & a flat anvil, usually made out of a soft metal like brass, aluminium or even plastic. These type tend to crush the cane (branch) against the anvil as it cuts, leaving cracks & large wounds, which take longer to heal and create sites for disease to enter the plant. The scissor type leave a sharp clean cut, which heals over more quickly. Felco seems to be the brand favored by the pros. I found a nice pair of Fiskars for a reasonable price at our local hardware store, OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware).

As you can see, I have mi amigo, Leo, pruning away at the vines and this was after just a few minutes of training. We decided as a first pass to cut the grapevine growth down to two trunk canes so if one cane gets damaged during the early spring we will have a spare to work with instead of replacing the entire plant. When the buds start leafing out a little later in the spring, then we cut the spare away.

To show in more detail what we are doing, we put a white board behind a really good plant that had a tremendous amount of growth for the first year. Really, as we said last post, this is more like second year growth. We were very fortunate to plant so early at the March 1st, 2008 planting party and have so many sunny days of spring with our early heat spell last year.

Well, the first cane we are going to cut off is a large lateral branch, low on the bottom right side kind of hidden in the weeds. After that, we selected the main cane that we want to keep and a secondary cane, which actually buded and grew out of our main cane. We continued to prune off the smaller side branches until we had only the two well formed canes left. In other plants we selected two separate canes that had budded out of the original clone graft, which is even a safer bet if anything happens to one of the canes, like getting broken.

Well there you have it. It took about eight hours to prune all the grapevines on this first pass. We will probably spend a couple more hours in a month or so to prune off the spare canes.

On another note, I received a pink slip a week ago for "pruning" costs at my school district to meet next year's budget, which hopefully will be rescinded in a couple of months. Given that, I can't help but pass on a joke I heard from the Palo Alto superintendent of schools:

Attention All Personnel - In our ongoing effort to reduce costs, we will be turning "off" the light at the end of the tunnel !

As a parent, educator & voter, California really needs to find a better way to fund education in our state. To go from being first in the nation in education, both in funding and student performance, when I was a child, to vying for last place in both today, is utterly ridiculous. I really want to find an organization that is going to address this issue with some practical common sense from all sides. If you hear of any please let me know.

I think I'll need a glass of wine after that tirade! Hope you are having a pleasant first day of spring.

From down in the vineyard, John

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 29: First Year Anniversary Edition

2009-02-22T13:58:00.000-08:00

WELL, WE DID IT !!!

WE SURVIVED OUR 1ST YEAR !!!

And the vineyard has survived ... voracious deer, gol' darn gophers, defective water system assembly (code for my stupid plumbing mistakes) and monster weeds that overwhelmed the trellises. But the job at hand, pruning, is rapidly nearing the critical period. So, today we started to clear the weeds that the goats have not managed to eat. Notice the "goats' exodus" of the vineyard due to the noise of the weed wacker™.

That's "mi amigo, Leo" wacking™ away at the weeds. We used the small sheet of plywood propped up against the grapevine to protect the plant as well as the drip-lines during the wacking process™

This year's pruning is a little different from that of an established vineyard. In this first and second year's pruning we are establishing the trunk & cordons of the grapevine. From the description of most sources, including The Backyard Vintner by Jim Law, it seems like we got the equivalent of "two years worth of growth" on most of our grapevine as you can see in the photo of one of the grapevines with the white poster board background.

So, from all the shoots that have grown out from the clone, we will choose the straightest & most upright cane, then prune away all the others. That remaining cane we will tie off to a "grape stake" with some of that green gardening elastic tie or use "growtubes". We will also top (cut-off) this cane at the level of the trellis wire to stimulate lateral growth.

Hey, its starting to rain and I hear its going to rain all week, so we will probably take a couple of weeks to tame these weeds as we dance around the rain storms. So we will be actually pruning in the last weeks of winter or the first week or so of spring!

Wishing you happy anniversary from down in the vineyard,

John

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 28: Valentine's Day Edition!

2009-02-15T23:20:00.000-08:00

Hi all:

Hope you all are enjoying the weekend. We are having a very wet & rainy Valentine's Day here. Over two days of heavy rain and two more fore-casted for Monday & Tuesday. Well, all this rain is a good thing for California. The rain here means snowfall in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Which means no drought this summer!

Is my picture out of focus you ask? Actually, it is raining so hard that my camera is focusing on the close in rain drops, which can be seen upon very close inspection (see the white streak by the corner of the old deck beams) and the background vineyard falls out of that focal range!

Well, as you can kind of see, the goats have valiantly tried to eat the weeds in the vineyard. At least now you can see the trellis posts! Before the goats started, the weeds had overgrown the trellis posts. We had six foot tall mustard grass! Big Mac, Ellie & their little crew of four have spent a great deal of time down there eating the weeds, but the time has come to prune. And so, I will have to intervene and whack down the rest of the weeds as soon as we get a dry spell!

Hope you are all well and staying dry & out of the weather!

From down in the very wet vineyard,

John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 27: Goat Powered Lawn Mowers!!!

2009-01-17T21:20:00.000-08:00

Hi all:

The vineyard is truly in fallow with only a couple of dry leaves left on the grapevines. In the cold of our California winter [ah, ... wait a second ... you know, taken from my own personal experiences, ... we Californians are really wimps when it comes to the cold. It's not cold here! Its a bloomin' 70 degrees (that's 22 for you metric folk)! Notice I am in a tee-shirt! You could live in Finland! Now that would be cold!!]... So, here in the "relative" cold of our Californian winter, the weeds have grown up, choking the vines. Some of the weeds are taller than the vines themselves!

We had a nice visit from one of my oldest, longest (?) friends, Duncan MacKenzie & members of his clan, notably his son, daughter & the boyfriend, sister Ann & husband Doug (who took the pictures in this post! Thanks, Doug!) After an inspection of the goats, we adjourned to the vineyard where you can see my very healthy weeds.

I have attempted to let the goats wander down to the tall green grass of the vineyard, but they really want to stay in the northern pasture we have created for them. I think Ellie, the mom, is being a little protective of her little ones. So I will have to coax them down to the vineyard everyday until Mom is more comfortable with the new local!

Our bee man, Alan, checked out our hive this weekend and things are looking good. The queen is working away laying eggs. Alan thinks there are 80,000 bees plus in our hive with lots of new honeycomb. I got to sample the honey, which was as clear as light corn syrup, but had a wonderful flavor. Alan said that the clear color was due to only one flower being pollinated right now, although my rosemary, my neighbor's lavender and the mustard grass in the fields are all in bloom.

Hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather, at least those of you in California. The rest of you guys, put another log on the fire and bundle up!

Happy winter, John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 26: Happy New YOV !!!

2009-01-03T13:19:00.000-08:00

Hi all:

We hope you have had a wonderful holiday season! The vineyard is entering its dormaint period, so before the leaves all drop and the pruning begins, we have little more time to socialize & play a bit.

Our family's holiday season started with a Thanksgiving visit to my brother Mike's new place in Nevada, west of Lake Tahoe, opposite the Kingsbury Grade, in the Minden Valley. We had a wonderful time visiting with my sister-in-law Monica, my niece Melissa, her husband Luke & their three children who live in Truckee, while Uncle Mike and my son Scott planned a January sailing trip from Puerto Rico to the Virgin Islands. The mountain scene above is the view to the southwest of Job's Peak at sunrise from my brother's place.

In mid-December, fulfilling my Aunt Doris's annual family tradition that she started some 50 years ago, Kristen, Scott, the girls & I all dressed up and attended the San Francisco Nutcracker Ballet. Afterwards we had a fine dinner and enjoyed some nice French wine at Jardiniere [http://www.jardiniere.com/], right behind the San Francisco Opera House on Grove Street. Wonderful food and great service! They have consistently maintained a great menu and are so convenient for the SF opera, ballet, symphony or the civic center.

With the beginning of the winter school break, we began our adventure northward for an old-fashion Christmas family reunion! Taking the RV, we proceeded north along old haunts of John's near the University of California - Davis past Winters, California to Interstate Highway 5. The next day after a great breakfast at Oasis Grill at "Exit 8" (town unknown?), we headed northward past Mount Shasta and made for Ashland, Oregon to visit a friend of son Scott's, Mark (an ex-pat of Palo Alto!) who with his wife and their two horses have a beautiful home in the hills overlooking Ashland. After a nice cup of tea and some good conversation we headed northward again.

Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the Remote Outpost RV Park & Lodgings, which is Kristen's sister's husband's mother's place (Wow - that's a mouthful!). Its is located south of Eugene on the Coquille River, half way between Roseberg & Coos Bay on Oregon State Highway 42. Uncle Steve's mom, Charlotte & her husband Gary have made a wonderful place next to the river with woodsy cabins, RV facilities, campgrounds, a colorful common room & grounds. Additionally, Gary has installed very nice facility for dressing deer & elk for those who are inclined to hunting. If you are interested in staying there, call ahead for reservations as the lodgings book up really quick. [phone (541) 572-5105 or email: remoteoutpost@hughes.net]

As you can see we had a wonderful White Christmas (See my RV parked behind the main pavilion where we grilled oysters & roasted prime rib in the open air kitchen!) It was great re-visiting with family & friends, enjoying good conversations after our last get together some eight years back! Charlotte shared with me a picture of my son, Scott when he visited one summer 16 years ago! We had wonderful meals, featuring the fantastic cooking of the Jones family (Kristen's sister's husband Steve & brother Tim), including those grilled oysters fresh from Coos Bay (Yow, they were good!), steamed clams, prime rib, Christmas ham, garlic mashed potatoes, Grandma Karen's roasted asparagus, etc., etc., etc! And not to mention the great wines! Boy, I am salivating just thinking about it all! Man, those Jones boys sure can cook. Almost as good as their mom!!

The trip home was quite a long adventure as we went along the coastal route to avoid the snows of a severe winter storm inland. But we were still buffeted by the winds and rain along the beautiful Oregon coast. Scott missed out on the excitement as he ditched us early and flew back to attend his 10th high school reunion back in Palo Alto and then prepare for his trip to the Caribbean.

As we approached Santa Rosa, we got word from Scott back home that our pregnant goat, Ellie, had giving birth to not two, but four baby kid goats on the evening of the December 27th! Fortunately, our Los Altos Hills neighbor, Laney Harney, is a goat herder from way back and after several phone calls back & forth and much advise, we found a feed store in Petaluma that was open, stocked up on goat nursing supplies and made for home lickety-split! Here are some pictures of the little ones with our daughter Suzie & her friend Caroline:

I was probably pushing my luck, but we decided to hit the slopes & do a little skiing for New Years. So we headed for our cabin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Pincecrest Lake & Dodge Ridge. The weather in the mountains was absolutely beautiful with clear blues skies, perfect snow conditions and crowds that were non-exsistent! I had a great day skiing on New Year Eve, but in the afternoon I misstepped coming off a ski lift, fell down and in a fluke accident, sprained/strained both my right hip and my knees! OUCH!! Good thing Katie was along to drive me back to the cabin!

I am OK and healing quickly, but I think I have to hang up my skis for the season until after my hip surgery in the summer. Here's a picture of the view from our cabin of Mt. Cooper (the central peak) and to the right you can make out the upper runs cut through the trees of Chair #7, where I met my demise! Actually, we can't see this view from our deck anymore as we have a cabin that was built in front of us some years back. (Should have bought that lot back in 1970 when they wanted the outrageous price of $4,500 for it!)

So, now I am hobbling around at home, getting out some last minute holiday cards, correcting papers for my students and trying to help Kris with house cleaning, as much as one can do with crutches. And even though my holiday ended on a painful note, we had some wonderful experiences and cherished memories that we will remember for a long time to come.

We hope that your holidays were special and that your families are all well and in good health or at least like me, on the mend! We are all looking forward to an exciting, peaceful & productive 2009 tending the vineyard and fixin' up our old house! And we look forward to visiting you all soon!

Our best wishes to you all from down in the vineyard,

Kristen, John, Scott, Katie & Suzie

Disco Mania!

2008-12-25T01:00:00.000-08:00

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 25: Holiday Greetings From YOV!

2008-12-14T20:49:00.000-08:00

Hey, thank you! We have had over 1000 visits to YOV Blog! But what to talk about now to keep you coming back!? Grapevines? Bees? Our newly installed energy efficient tank-less/soon to be solar hot-water heater? Baby goats!?!!

Well, no baby goats yet! But we have big plans for these guys and very soon. As soon as the all the leaves have dropped from the grapevines, we are going to let the goats graze in the vineyard to control the weed growth! They have done an excellent job in their own pasture manicuring the grass. And without the grape leaves to attract them, we think that they will not bother the dormant, bare grapevines and help trim back the winter growth of weeds. No more weed wacking, YEAH! Additionally, we will get a bit of natural fertilizer deposited, thank Big Mac, Ellie & future little crew!

Since it is a presidential year and with the enormity of electing our first African-American president, I couldn't help but mention that East Bay Congressman George Miller had a lottery of his constituents for a couple of tickets to the Obama's inauguration. And one of the winners was a UCD wine making student from Vallejo by the name of Jeff Baccus. I note this as whichever winery hires this young man, they will have a perfect built in marketing campaign: "Their wine is made by Baccus, the living god of wine!", otherwise known as Jeff!

Well, we will be firing up the old RV for an adventurous trek to the hamlet of Remote, Oregon which is a little town halfway between Roseburg and Coos Bay for an old fashion Christmas Family Reunion! Let me tell you, Remote is really in a remote part of southern Oregon, where Kristen's brother-in-law's mother has an Inn with cute little woodsy cabins, an RV park and camping facilities. They primarily cater to hunters, who frequent the local woods for elk, deer & alike, but they let a tree hugger like me visit 'cuz I'm family.

As we sit by the warmth of our fire decorating our Christmas tree and toasting with a bit of eggnog, our whole family is wishing the very best to you this holiday season and hope you have an enjoyable & restful time with family & friends!

Best regards,

John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 24: Autumn Turns To Winter

2008-11-23T17:38:00.000-08:00

Hi all:

Down here in the vineyard, the leaves are turning from their bright summer green, to a brilliant yellow & finally to a dark, rich maroon. Indian Summer, our California Autumn, is slowly slipping away and the cold afternoons are upon us. Winter is approaching in only a month .... and it is time to think about pruning.

After all the leaves have fallen, probably late in January, we will plan to prune all the growth down to one main cane, which will become the trunk of these first year vines. In my spare time, I have been reading all the "How To's" from agricultural extensions and alike, but the best source for pruning that I have found, so far, is a book (and a DVD!) from a UC-Davis trained horticulturalist, Lon Rombough, who now resides in Oregon.

Hey, following up with our little friends, the gophers (not!), Landscape Pest Control, who specializes in small vineyard and landscape pest control, has treated the vineyard for our little problem. So now we are on the watch for any intrusion back into the vineyard over the next 30 days by these burrowing demons! We have one mole living in the vineyard, but moles are beneficial as they are insectivores, so he gets to stay! The rest of you guys, stay out!!

Wishing you well from down in the vineyard,

John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 23: Our Bountiful Horn 'O Plenty

2008-11-09T22:38:00.000-08:00

Well, the Autumn harvest has come and gone at Young Oak Vineyards. In our first "crush", we picked our 2008 crop (in less than five minutes). Yes, that is our entire 2008 grape harvest in my left hand! At least we had a few grapes to get a taste of what is to come!

Notice the more purplish grapes toward the middle of the cluster, which are fully ripe, as opposed to the darker blues ones, which could have stayed on the vine a bit longer. But both are very sweet. My neighbor, Mark Vernon showed me another indicator as to the grape's ripeness by looking at the color of the seeds, which were still a bit green in shade on the dark blue grapes indicating not fully ripened.

In other harvest news, our bee man, Alan, came by the other weekend and we got a chance to see how our hive is fairing. As we have just had our hive installed this late summer, we are not going to be able to harvest any honey until next spring. But just to be sure that the bees are doing well and have enough food for the winter, we checked it out recently. After my youngest daughter, Suzie and my son, Scott, suited up, we were ready to open the hive and see how things are going! I stood about 10-12 feet away and amazingly the bees were not riled up by our intrusion.

Alan showed us the different frames where honey was being stored or eggs were being laid for new bees. The hive was in pretty good shape considering its move from Roseville to our house, about 150 miles (240 km).

In goat news, our female, Ellie Mae, is now confirmed pregnant, as we took her down to our local vet, Adobe Animal Hospital. She was quite a hit with the staff and the patrons, with everyone petting, poking and prodding her belly. But the ultra-sound confirmed at least two beating hearts (other than Ellie's) and an X-ray showed two distinct fetal skeletons and possibly a third. At any rate, we are going to have the best Christmas Nativity manger scene in the neighborhood! We just have to find a newborn baby!

All in all, things are going pretty well at the vineyard. The Autumn rains have allowed us to stop our weekly watering. But our constant vigil against the gophers continues. With the colder weather, the vine canes have turned color from their bright green to a rich red-brown as the older green leaves are starting to turn color as well. I am staying warm by the fire this weekend and wishing you well from down in the vineyard.

John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 22: Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts!

2008-10-01T23:00:00.000-07:00

Well, those dastardly little devils have taken down five more beautiful, mature grapevines!!!! I can only think of the old Boy Scout Song that I mention in the title. Fortunately, I talked with a neighbor who had a similar problem when they were starting their vineyard. In fact, they lost their entire vineyard to gophers and had to replant the next year. Hopefully, we can avoid that when my neighbor's Gopher Guy, "Landscape Pest Control", recommends a treatment for my vineyard! I will keep you posted!

Hey, one of the great things I get to do as a science teacher is experience a lot of wonderful displays & events involving science. So, two weeks ago I was able to fly on the "Vomit Comet" with three other fellow science teachers from my school, along with a group of math & science teachers from all around California to experience weightlessness just like the astronauts! We invited news reporter Bob Redell from NBC channel 11 along and he got alot of great footage of my fellow teachers and our department chair, Joe, with some great sound bits (sic joke!). You get to see me fly like "Superman" and one of our chemistry instructors, Pat, eats M&M while floating in "Zero G" weightlessness, not to mention Joe's minor stomach problem.

I recommend everyone go do this! The company "Zero G" flies out of Las Vegas where you too can experience it too. It only costs $5,000 per person. And for $15,000 you can fly on the "Platinum Plan" with Astronaut Buzz Aldrin and have dinner with him afterwards! Or you can do what Martha Stewart did and charter the entire jet for $150,000 and take 35 of your friends along for "the most incredible birthday party ever"!

I went a cheaper route and didn't pay anything, by becoming a teacher and applying for a grant with the Northrup-Gruman Foundation, who pays for science & math teachers to experience weightlessness to enhance their teaching and get their students excited about careers in science & math ! I have already used some of our weightlessness experiments that we did in "Zero G" in my classes and I am planning on many more this year!

Hope you are enjoying our beautiful fall weather. The crush is on and it would be time to pick my grapes if the birds hadn't eaten all 40 of them. Oh well, we are hoping for many, many more next year! (Note to self: get bird netting before next year!)

Wishing you a most wonderful "Indian Summer" from down here in the vineyard,

John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 20: Back To School!?

2008-08-22T01:14:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

This post's featured musical artist is the consummate "Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks". Dan went to high school in Santa Rosa and hit the San Francisco music scene in the late 60's. This cut, "I Scare Myself", is his signature piece, although I like his original "The Walkin' One & Only" when I want to tap my foot a bit!

Scare Myself - Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks

Well, the grapevines are continuing to do well. I noticed the Pinot Noir vineyard on Concepcíon Road, about a mile or two from my house, is now fully laden with grapes. Last year, the vineyard master there told me that they typically pick in late August to early September, because the Pinot Noir grapes mature earlier here in Los Altos Hills due to the warmer climate, compared with some of the other coastal valley regions known for Pinot Noir (Remember the movie "Sideways"!). Mark Vernon, Ridge COO, mentioned that they usually pick 4-6 weeks after the grape turn to their dark color. Well, we only have a couple of handfuls of grapes on our vines this first season as you can see in the picture below! Maybe I will make a couple of glasses of grape juice for Kristen and I to toast you all!

I found a great description of the laboratory equipment & techniques from the Hardy Wine Company in Australia, used for the measuring sugar content of grapes and determining when to pick. I have been exposed to this information in the past, but it will be interesting to re-learn about these methods. By the way, the Hardy Wine Company, founded in 1850's, is now the largest winemaker in the world. Through mergers and acquisitions, they recently changed their name to Constellation Wines Australia.

On a related note, Ron Mosely, the owner of Vinescape and the installer of my neighbor Mark's vineyard, will be teaching in the new Viticulture Program at Foothill College starting this Fall '08 term. The "Establishing A Vineyard" class, which I would love to take, is on Fridays, so, unfortunately, I won't be able to attend. I think I will try to sit in on at least one class, though. Additionally, Foothill is offering a winemaking class on two Saturdays this Fall (Sept. 27th & Oct. 4th), which I am planning to register for! Check it out and maybe we can take it together!!

See you after class,
John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 19: Here's My Card!

2008-08-10T00:45:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

This post features the music of our famous, local Menlo Park residents & internationally known performers, "Tuck & Patti". Tuck is originally from Oklahoma, went to Stanford and performed in the LA music/TV scene. Patti, from San Francisco, is classically trained and met Tuck in 1978 while auditioning for a band he was in. The band didn't happen, but Tuck & Patti did and they have been making beautiful music ever since! This cut is "Time After Time", popularized by Cindy Lauper, but I like Patti's soulful version best with Tuck's great guitar work!

On a personal connection, we last saw Tuck & Patti perform at the Peninsula School Benefit a couple of years back with a tremendous improvised "scat" by Patti on "Tears of Joy". After the performance, as we walked to our car, my youngest daughter, Suzie tripped, fell & skinned her knee. As I helped Suzie up, Patti came running over the driveway with a folding chair for Suzie, helping her up & consoling her about her skinned knee! Thank you, Patti!!

What's going on at the vineyard, you ask? Well, ..., I got new business cards!!!

Otherwise, the plants just keep growing & growing! The grapevine that my daughter, Suzie was holding in my post of July 27, 2008 is now taller than me! I just have to watch the watering, not too much nor too little. And finally, there is the possibility of mold causing August rains! If it gets damp, I am told I need to dust the grapevine leaves with sulfur powder.

Hey, the new August 2008 issue of the "Wine Spectator" has their annual "world's best restaurants for wine" review. Seventy three restaurants received their top accolade and the nearest ones to Young Oak Vineyards are in San Francisco: Fifth Floor in the Hotel Palomar on Fourth Street, Michael Mina in The Westin St. Francis Hotel on Powell and Restaurant Gary Danko on Point Street.

Several peninsula local restaurants received the "Award of Excellence" or the higher mark "Best of Award of Excellence", including:

John Bentley's in Redwood City,

Bella Vista and The Village Pub in Woodside,

Marché in Menlo Park,

Fleming's Prime Rib Steakhouse & Wine Bar,

Il Fornio, La Strada, Lavanda Restaurant & Wine Bar,

Mantra Restaurant & Lounge, Quattro Restaurant & Bar,

Sundance The Steakhouse and Zibibbo all in Palo Alto!

One aspect of their listing is restaurants featuring "inexpensive pricing" with one local restaurants noted, Woodside Bakery & Café!

You can go to WineSpectator.com select the Dining & Travel tab and press the Free Restaurant Search button to search for restaurants all around the world. Here's to the enjoyment of the rest of your summer!

Saluté!

John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 18: More Grapevines!!

2008-08-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

Happy Summer Everyone!

Well, here we are in the middle of the "Dog Days of Summer", but it has been a really mild summer temperature wise, so far. To make things even cooler, our featured music is by Paco de Lucia, considered to be the King of Modern Spanish Flamenco Guitar. He was a child prodigy, making his first public performance at age 11 and is probably the fastest Flamenco guitarist ever.

Paco recorded this wonderful piece, "Entre Dos Aguas" in the 1976 at the ripe old age of 29. (Hey guys, ... remember how psychedelic you looked with your long hair, your favorite paisley shirt, bell bottom pants & side zippered black boots, ... Oh wait, ... that was me!) Well, this isn't Paco's most dynamic piece, but it is one of my favorites! Push the play button to watch this short 5 minute video or listen while you read my blog below! Olé!!

Now, about the goings on's at Young Oak Vineyards! Ridge Winery has been planting some Cabernet Franc in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which they use as a blending grape. And they have some leftover grapevines with no place to plant them. These are potted grapevines with leafy foliage, more developed plants than the root stock/grafts we planted back in March. Mark Vernon, Ridge COO, has generously offered some of their extras, as I have room for about 25-30 more grapevines at the bottom of our field on the south side.

Although somewhat obvious from its name, it has been recently confirmed, by DNA analysis, that the Cabernet Franc was crossed with the Sauvignon Blanc grape, to give us the Cabernet Sauvignon grape sometime during the 1600's in southwestern France (i.e.: Bordeaux). Early planting records in the Loire Valley suggest that the Franc grape originally came from Brittany, consistent with the cooler climate found there. I am excited to see how they will fair on my hot Los Altos hillside!

Just to make things fun, we have added a "billy" & "nanny" goat, to our menagerie. The "nanny" goat is due pretty soon, so we will have a herd of "kids" to keep the weeds trimmed in the "North Forty".

These guys are pygmy goats from a herd in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Felton, where Big Mac (black) was the dominant buck & Ellie (tan) was the matriarch doe of the herd. They are very gentle and come right up to eat out of your hand.

Ellie is a little stressed about leaving her herd behind & bleats a bit. And Big Mac is a little skittish, but very gentle. I think they will settle down in a few days. Definitely have to keep them away from the vineyard, though!

Well, I gotta go milk the goats now, but I'm having a little trouble finding Big Mac's udder!

John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 17: Water Consumption

2008-07-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

Hey, It's my son's birthday! Happy 28th Birthday, Scott! He is currently off traipsing around Kyrgyzstan on a holiday! But Katie, my 16 year old daughter, will be visiting Scott in Finland in a week, where he currently resides. He has planned a world-wind trip for them, flying to Budapest, then by train/car to Bratislava, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich & Frankfurt, visiting friends along the way! Then flying to Estonia to ferry back to Helsinki! Sounds like a John Candy Movie or Mel Brook's If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium!

Closer to home, just look at those grapevines! My youngest daughter, Suzie, is 5' 7" and several of the vines are almost as tall as she is.

As we had in Palo Alto, we have the wonderful, but contriversal Yosemite/Hetch-Hetchy West Bay water up here in Los Altos Hills. Since we moved here, our home water usage has been about 8 WU per month (water units, where 1 WU = 100 cubic feet of water). Hey, that is on the lowest usage billing tier, for anyone who is checking on my water conservation during our drought, by the way! Also, we don't have any landscaping, just weeds!

Well, after the March vineyard planting, our water usage has gone up to an average of 18 WU per month with a high of 30 WU during the May/June 2008 heat waves. Cutting to the chase, it was costing $25.63 per month, on average, to water the grapes by hand, using about 7,500 gallons a month. This has really allayed my fears of horrendous, multi-$100 water bills!

Also, we started using the drip system over 4th of July weekend, watering for 4 hours (at one gallon an hour) every 4-5 days or even longer. That would be about only 6,000 gallons a month. That is a reduction in our current usage by about 20%. We will just have to wait & see if we have any $20.50 per month bills in the future!

The featured musician of this edition of the Young Oak Vineyards Blog is Ottmar Liebert with "Bullfighter's Dream". Ottmar is a extremely talented German guitarist, first starting as a rock musician, then becoming one of the world most foremost Nouveau Flamenco guitarists. He has a great website with a diary blog (just like me!!), lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, US and is into environmentalism, Buddhism & photography among his many other creative talents & interests!

Bullfighters Dream - Ottmar Liebert

Drinking Mojitos & wishing you well from down in the vineyard,
John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 16: Wine & Music !!

2008-07-15T22:21:00.000-07:00

Hi all:

One month into summer and I have so many projects still to complete. But the grapevines just keep growing & growing down in the vineyard and there has been no sign of the deer coming back after we patched the "hole" in the fence. It is truly amazing, considering we just planted these vines 135 days ago. My watering system still has some bugs in it, but I am slowly addressing the non-cooperative emitters and the faulty plastic tubes as the former clog and the latter leak.

Needless to say, I have had more time to work on the old Chateau du Sphar. Daughter Suzie now has new halogen track lighting washing her walls and soon her sister,Katie, will have same. Perhaps, Kristen will even get new bedroom lights soon!!

As you have probably noticed by now, I have added a music widget to the "Young Oak Vineyards Blog". I find this initial piece by Pat Metheney, Sueño Con Mexico, to be very soothing. Pat is a most eclectic guitarist who experiments with many different styles & sounds. I hope you will enjoy it.Sueño con Mexico.mp3 - Pat Metheny -
Forgot to mention a couple of weeks back, we attended a very enjoyable wine bottling of a Petite Sarah blend at The Bacchus Winemaking Club in San Carlos. Very Interesting facility located on Industrial Road off of Whipple Road. The owner also bottles his own line of award winning wines as the Domenico Winery at the same location.

Wishing you a wonder-filled mid-summer from down in the vineyard,
John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 15: Vino Locale

2008-07-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Since I have finished the vineyard watering system, I now have time to do other things, like go to lunch with my dear friend, Lynn Fielder. We went to Vino Locale, which features meals made from local foods, featuring local wines & local artwork. Lynn displays her jewelry creations there and is instrumental in selecting the featured artists. (Click Lynn or Vino Locale to see their websites.) It was great catching up with Lynn. Her family has a Finnish heritage & connection, hosting a Finnish exchange student a few years back, which has been a great contact for my son Scott, who did his masters there and now resides in Helsinki.

Lynn & I had a fabulous lunch and sampled a flight of local Pinot Noirs. We started with the "Crostini Sampler" with home grown pesto and a wonderful pâté, followed by delicious grilled tri-tip sandwiches and completed with petit mocha cheesecakes. Vino Locale has a great wine cellar of small (& some not so small) local wineries within a 75 miles radius of Palo Alto. I highly recommend a visit to this wonderful restaurant !!

Regards, John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 14: The Trellis's Are Up!!

2008-07-06T18:53:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Hope you all are enjoying a great 4th of July weekend! Having the summer off has allowed me to do a lot of projects at home, and we have made a lot of progress in the vineyard as well. We have finally put up the trellis wires and now you can see why we put the posts in at an angle, to pull against 75 feet of wire and eventually the weight of the fruit ladened vines! I must say, the vineyard is really taking shape!

Many vines have reached over two feet in height and a few are even four feet. Several vines have developed green, unripened grapes berries about one centimeter in diameter (that's 0.4 inches for you non-metric folk).

I had intended to use grow tubes to protect the grapevines from the critters, however, Ron of Vinescape suggested I just allow the grapevines to grow unpruned and unfettered, to allow the root system to fully develop over the first year. Generally speaking, the root system below the ground is about the same size as the foliage is above ground. To use the grow tube, you have to prune the grapevine down to only one shoot, which you would train up as the trunk of the vine. For this we will wait until the late Fall / Winter season when I will learn about pruning.

A couple of days ago, when I was working with a couple of my amigos, five deer came wandering into the vineyard under my neighbor’s deck. This answers my question of how these guys have been getting in and browsing on the grape leaves. Now that we have plugged that leak, hopefully we have eliminated our deer problem!

Keepin' it "Safe & Sane" in the vineyard!
John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 13: Neighbor Mark Vernon Reports Big News!!!!!

2008-05-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Mark Vernon, Ridge Winery COO and neighbor extraordinaire, has reported to me that "green things" (leaves) are emerging from the sawdust inside the milk cartons, which you can see to the left.

Congratulations, Mark! That heat wave probably got the grafts & rootstocks going PDQ.

Regards, John

Young Oak Vineyards-Vol. 12: Emerging Tendrils!!

2008-05-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Working down in the vineyard this Memorial Day weekend, I was reminiscent of another life, in another world, at another time thanks to the recent Moffet Field Air Show. As I looked up to the blue sky, I saw a B-17 Bomber lumbering by the clouds and I thought I could be a Frenchman working on his vineyard in German occupied WWII France watching the Americans looking for a German tank convoy! Here's to the men & women of our armed services, past and present.

Above you can see the new grapevine tendrils (v shaped structures in my palm) emerging from the new leaf grow looking for something to grab onto, coil around & support future growth. It is amazing & miraculous how the cells of the plant differentiate into new and different structure just as our stem cells differentiate into the different tissues and structures of our bodies!

Now that I have received my "Gripple Tool" & my pink "Grow-Tubes", I have a flurry of work to do to put in the trellis wires in the next couple of weeks to help encourage that growth. So we will have lots to report in the near future.

But this weekend I just had to go camping at Foothill Park with my youngest daughter, Suzie, and some of the great Escondido families to share stories around the campfire! Hope you too had a great Memorial Day weekend. Wishing you and your families are all well, especially those with members in the armed services.

Regards from down in the vineyard,

John

Young Oak Vineyards-Vol. 11: Its Growing Season!!

2008-05-19T16:09:00.000-07:00

May 18, 2008

Hi all:

Well the heat is here! And we are at the start of our warm weather growing season. But these grapevines you have planted have not done too shabby during the early spring for the last 78 days. As you can see from the attached photo, we have several cane shoots in full leafy foliage with flower bud clusters as I am holding in my hand. These clusters will soon bloom into tiny flowers from which the fruit (grapes) will swell. I have attached a great photo montage from Michigan State University showing the stages of grapevine development. Check it out:

http://www.grapes.msu.edu/pdf/Growthstages.pdf

Next time we will be pruning down to one main shoot on each grapevine and putting on a growth tubes. I ended up purchasing the pink ones (Paris Hilton, you win), but more about that later. I should be receiving them next week, along with my "Gripple" tensioning tool! My neighbor, Mark Vernon, had the super crew from Vinescape plant last week with very interesting techniques to protect the grafted rootstocks. Each rootstock is protected by an empty milk carton, open on each end. Further, the planted rootstock is covered with sawdust inside the milk carton. Those guys really know what they are doing!

Trying to stay cool down in the vineyard,
John