As in the gardens, our practices in the vineyard are focused on the goal of improving the vitality of our soils. Check out the information in the “Gardens” section to read about our practices concerning the soil, fertilizers and pest control. In the vineyard, though, we add two additional elements.The first is a sophisticated tillage program. Always focusing on maintaining soil health, we gently perform a cycle of weed control, aeration, nutrient cycling and cover cropping to provide healthy growing conditions for the vines. The main distinction between the vineyard blocks and the garden blocks is that the vineyard blocks are where the Applegate River used to run thousands of years ago. Being old riverbed, the soils are exceedingly well-drained and excruciatingly rocky (just ask our ankles!) Our tillage program is so sophis-ticated it does all the stuff listed above, and it works in rocks so thick you can’t even see down to the soil!
The second addition is our canopy management. During the spring and summer months, we manage the vineyard canopy by hand. Working by hand allows us to create individual spaces which optimize the conditions for fruit ripening on each plant. By the end of the season, these individual spaces combined with a healthy vineyard floor create for us a harvest of fruit that is uniform in ripeness, delectable, vibrant and lush.Respectfully, we acknowledge that our intention is simply to provide a favorable environment in which all the elements of the farm can live dynamically and with vitality. In return, we have been rewarded with beautiful, beautiful fruit!
