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How High the Moon
Happy Super Worm Equinox Moon!
We here at Ledge would like to wish you a happy first day of Spring, and guess what? It dumped a bunch more rain on the Adams Ranch Vineyard last night. As much as we hope for the safety and well being of those experiencing natural disasters due to inclement weather, we are thankful for the end to the drought.
The only pickle in this situation is that we are unable to get into the vineyard to replant our nursery until it dries out a bit. The nodes on our Grenache babies are starting to swell which means bud break can't be far behind.
We are excited to be revitalizing our first block of Syrah (planted in 2005), with updated hardware and the creation of an upper and lower section (see picture below). This will allow us to improve water pressure as we transplant and irrigate new baby vines for the first few years. The adult vines can continue to thrive in their usual dry farmed fashion.
Here are some photos of our happy, soggy rancho.
Coming up soon: transplanting the nursery!
Mar 20, 2019 at 11:11 PM
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Cash on the Barrelhead
We tasted 27 barrel samples today at Halter Ranch.
The first sample was a neutral 2012 barrel.
The rest were brand new oak barrels from various cooperages.
What an awesome experiment!
The wine was an opulent blend of mostly Cabernet with 5% Malbec.
The neutral barrel was easily my favorite.
Brilliant wine.
Stunning actually.
Kevin Sass and Molly Lonborg are crushing it over there at Halter Ranch and we are big fans of the whole operation.
That said, our philosophy is, if it isn't broken don't fix it.
I relayed my findings back to the home office.
My message went thusly:
If you aren't packing heat, don't mess with wood.
Ledge wines lean torward toward subtlety and lots of new oak runs the risk of overpowering the fruit.
We are not going to put on muscle man outfits that don't suit us.
We like to coax things.
Spectate.
Applaud.
Love.
Snuggle.
Smoulder.
Lay around them.
Touch things.
Oh, wait, was I talking about wine or our last lovely vacation along the shores of the Danube?
More next week.
Planting time for the nursery!
Mar 14, 2019 at 11:11 PM
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Au revoir les enfants (Reservoir Dogs)
Good Afternoon,
A friendly reminder: Wine Club shopping carts are active and the offer is out. Please double check your inbox if you are on the list. In addition to the regular allocation, we are offing a 2013 Adams Ranch Syrah and a few other gems from previous vintages.
The 2016 Adams Ranch Syrah is sold out but there is a small stash of 2016 James Berry Vineyard Grenache remaining. Only allocation and mailing list members get this offer. We will be sending this offer to our (much larger) general email list Friday.
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In other news...
Like much of the country, we here in the Willow Creek District are experiencing an extreme winter and lots of precipitation. The approximate average rainfall for Templeton is around 20 inches and we have currently received over 35 inches.
The reservoirs are filling up and wilflowers are starting to peek out of the lush grassy landscape. It's going to be a great year for wildflowers! Next week, after a few days of sunshine, I will post a bunch of wildflower photos.
As for now, I've got our baby cuttings trimmed up and the 1year olds are full of roots and ready to transfer into the vineyards. The Bunkhouse Block will undergo a fun transition, as we inter-plant a "field blend" of vines into what was previously entirely Syrah. The Bunkhouse will contain Syrah, Grenache, Cinsaut, Counoise and Roussanne with the intention of picking it together and co-fermenting the harvest. Exciting!
The vineyard block breakdown at the Ranch looks like this:
LEDGE BLOCK - Cordon trained (8'x3' spacing) Estrella clone Syrah, Massale propogated from the Bone Rock terraces at James Berry Vineyard. Deep sand and clay.
METER BY METER - Cane pruned and tightly spaced (4'x3') Estrella clone Syrah, propogated from the Ledge Block. Heavy clay over a sandstone shelf.
THE FIN- Head trained at 10'x10', multiple clones of Grenache including 362 (France), 814 (Spain) and the Alban selection. Terra Rosa, sandstone and clay.
ORCHARD BLOCK- Head trained at 10'x10', mostly Spanish Garnacha (814) on sandy clay loam.
LAKE BLOCK - Head trained at 10'x8', Grenach interplanted with Roussanne in heavy standstone gravel, rolled stones, sand and clay.
BUNKHOUSE BLOCK - Guyot trained at 8'x4', Syrah clones 7 and 747, Cinsaut, Counoise and Roussanne. Clay loam, rocky sandstone and sand.
CINSAUT BLOCK - Widely spaced (11'x11') head trained Cinsaut in sandy clay loam.
Above: Adams Ranch Vineyard Grenache in the Fin and Orchard Blocks.
Below: Part of our vine nursery including Syrah, Grenache, Counoise, Roussanne and Grenache Blanc.
Mar 6, 2019 at 11:11 PM
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