Monday, May 10, 2010
Springtime at the Pond
Vineyards are an exciting place because they are ever changing and evolving; the ideal place to watch life and growth, literally, before your eyes. This year, Round Pond wants you to experience our 2010 growing season from start to finish, so you can truly understand what that goes into each bottle of ours that you love so much!
Many people forget that wine is an agricultural product, so it is easy to overlook all of the labor and love that go into producing the wine itself. We hope that this blog will be a source for you to come learn about all those "behind the scenes" details that play into production, as well as a place to come enjoy the lighter side of the Pond that is our Estate and family.
So where to begin? Spring is a fun time of year around here! After months of dormancy, the vines begin to come back to life. Bud break is the first stage of the growing cycle for the year, and it is also one of the most vulnerable times for the vines to withstand. Tiny buds begin to emerge which are very sensitive to all of the weather and elements that are a part of the season, so it is important for the vineyard managers to protect them from frost damage. The abundance of rain has helped us tremendously this year, so we have no worries about lack of water when using irrigation to protect against frost.
Right before or during budbreak, the cover crops that have been growing all Winter are mowed down. Cover crops are a natural way of getting important nutrients that may be lacking back into the soils. It can also help prevent erosion. Many of you are familiar with Black Mustard (which is actually yellow)
that grows throughout the Napa Valley. What you may not know is that it is purposely planted to add Nitrogen back into the soil! There are actually dozens of different types of plants that are chosen for cover crops, and each is carefully selected depending on what nutrients each individual vineyard needs. Round Pond uses what is called precision farming, which is very involved and time consuming, but of course results in the wine quality being that much higher. For example, in our vineyards you might see one row planted with cover crop, but only half way down the row. Why is this? The half that has a cover crop needs those nutrients, but the other half has healthy soil that needs no additional help. Now that's a lot of hand's on precision work by our vineyard team! 
After the bud's are growing and we're out of frost danger, its time for suckering or basal shoot removal. This is another labor intensive process that involves a team of vineyard professionals slowly walking through every single row of the vineyards and removing all the extra buds/shoots that have begun growing out of place. If we let the vines do what they wanted, there would be an overload of growth that would result in massive amounts of fruit, all at very low quality and poor flavor. But, if we remove the extra growth and only allow a specific amount of shoots per vine, then each bunch of grapes is assured to reach full ripeness and maximum flavor potential. All of the extra effort that the vines would have put into those extra grapes is instead concentrated and focused into fewer clusters. This is one of many reasons we can produce the big, beautiful, full bodied Cabernet Sauvignon's that you love so much!
Besides all the growth that is taking place in the vineyards, Spring is also exciting because of the other life it brings to our Estate. The bird houses are filling up quickly with nests and eggs, and the jack rabbits are bouncing wildly in the fields. Even the dogs are tired of their Winter dormancy, so they're out giving the birds and rabbits a good run around!
We hope you will follow along with us this year as we give you an inside look at all the life here on our Estate, and please feel free to post questions or ask for more detail about any of the topics discussed. Below is a video about bud break that includes an interview and discussion with our vineyard manager Chris Pedemonte. Stay tuned and enjoy!!
Many people forget that wine is an agricultural product, so it is easy to overlook all of the labor and love that go into producing the wine itself. We hope that this blog will be a source for you to come learn about all those "behind the scenes" details that play into production, as well as a place to come enjoy the lighter side of the Pond that is our Estate and family.
So where to begin? Spring is a fun time of year around here! After months of dormancy, the vines begin to come back to life. Bud break is the first stage of the growing cycle for the year, and it is also one of the most vulnerable times for the vines to withstand. Tiny buds begin to emerge which are very sensitive to all of the weather and elements that are a part of the season, so it is important for the vineyard managers to protect them from frost damage. The abundance of rain has helped us tremendously this year, so we have no worries about lack of water when using irrigation to protect against frost.
Right before or during budbreak, the cover crops that have been growing all Winter are mowed down. Cover crops are a natural way of getting important nutrients that may be lacking back into the soils. It can also help prevent erosion. Many of you are familiar with Black Mustard (which is actually yellow)
that grows throughout the Napa Valley. What you may not know is that it is purposely planted to add Nitrogen back into the soil! There are actually dozens of different types of plants that are chosen for cover crops, and each is carefully selected depending on what nutrients each individual vineyard needs. Round Pond uses what is called precision farming, which is very involved and time consuming, but of course results in the wine quality being that much higher. For example, in our vineyards you might see one row planted with cover crop, but only half way down the row. Why is this? The half that has a cover crop needs those nutrients, but the other half has healthy soil that needs no additional help. Now that's a lot of hand's on precision work by our vineyard team! 
After the bud's are growing and we're out of frost danger, its time for suckering or basal shoot removal. This is another labor intensive process that involves a team of vineyard professionals slowly walking through every single row of the vineyards and removing all the extra buds/shoots that have begun growing out of place. If we let the vines do what they wanted, there would be an overload of growth that would result in massive amounts of fruit, all at very low quality and poor flavor. But, if we remove the extra growth and only allow a specific amount of shoots per vine, then each bunch of grapes is assured to reach full ripeness and maximum flavor potential. All of the extra effort that the vines would have put into those extra grapes is instead concentrated and focused into fewer clusters. This is one of many reasons we can produce the big, beautiful, full bodied Cabernet Sauvignon's that you love so much!
Besides all the growth that is taking place in the vineyards, Spring is also exciting because of the other life it brings to our Estate. The bird houses are filling up quickly with nests and eggs, and the jack rabbits are bouncing wildly in the fields. Even the dogs are tired of their Winter dormancy, so they're out giving the birds and rabbits a good run around!
We hope you will follow along with us this year as we give you an inside look at all the life here on our Estate, and please feel free to post questions or ask for more detail about any of the topics discussed. Below is a video about bud break that includes an interview and discussion with our vineyard manager Chris Pedemonte. Stay tuned and enjoy!!
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