Someone explain Zinfandel to me. I understand it's a tough grape to grow because it ripen unevenly but compared to other varietals, is the idea to grow it into small clusters with small berries? I recently picked Zin at a residential vineyard up in Sonoma and the berries and bunches were HUGE!

Compared to other vineyard I've picked at, this place was hostile to say the least. There were power lines above which buzzed electricity for all to hear. The wasps. OH MY GOD, the wasps were out gorging even at seven in the morning! The morning was cold and damp no less. But the crop was hit and miss. I definitely "cherry-picked" my way through the vineyard looking for the cleanest, undamaged clusters for myself. I scoured majority of the vineyard to find enough crop but I was blown away with how big the berries were. They almost looked like table grapes!

Here's some pics









So far, the fermentation is going great. The Brix were 24 and PH 3.3 (still need to check acids). I bled off 10 gallons of juice from 400 pounds of fruit which I'll make a blush from but more importantly to concentrate flavors with increased skins to juice ratio.

Can anyone comment on growing Zinfandel? Am I being too sensitive to berry size or is this true to the varietal?

I just confirmed details to pick some Zinfandel in Dry Creek Valley (north Santa Rosa). I'm a little concerned to be honest. I haven't visited the vineyard this year and the owner hasn't given me any sense of confidence about the quality. He seems to be more concerned about getting paid than producing quality fruit...

Last week, the brix levels were 23 and it will be another week later by the time I pick. I don't know the PH nor the acid levels. I've asked but never got a response. I'm only picking 350 pounds at 75 cents per pound so it's not a huge investment to go in blindly but I have concerns none the less.

Here's the property snapshot of the vineyard:



I'm going to arrive at sunrise so I'll have enough light to pick but early enough to pick it all and still get home in time to watch some football after crushing it all.

I'm going to try out a hand crank destemmer from the Good Brewer in Livermore which is smaller and I'm hoping more delicate and controllable than the motorized ones.

Keep your finger's crossed for me... I'm praying this day will go smoothly

After some success growing Syrah, I opted to get a few more vines... in fact I'm tripling it's size! I've once again ordered my vines from mypersonalvineyard.com along with their protectives sleeves now that the season is HOT but will go dormant for month to come.

This time around, I've order 2 more Syrah vines, 2 vines of Grenache and 2 vines of Mouvedre. I'm hoping to make a "GSM" field blend in the years to come where I will take sugar and acid reading across them all and pick everything at once depending where the numbers are at in relation to the other varietals. A "field blend" if you will...

I will continue to take picture once the vines arrive along with pics of my quickly growing Syrah vines. The more I read about vineyards, grape selection, soil types etc... the more I realize how HUGE this industry really becomes.

And I love every second of it.

In my continued obsession with all things wine, I decided to plant some grape vines in my backyard in hopes to make an "estate" wine with the fruit. After a lot of research online, I decided to go with a company/website called mypersonalvineyard.com. I was impressed with their lineup of products, prices and guarantee along with their clear directions for planting and irrigation. They serve many professional vineyards which I also liked. They grow the vines, then cut them, graft them on disease resistant rootstock then grow them again for another year so every vine for purchase is at least two years old.

I started off small and ordered 3 vines of Syrah. Which all arrived together in a packed bag of saw dust and moisture which was comforting to see since they were shipped (arrived in just 3 days which I thought was impressive).



I then dug my holes and prepared the soil and surrounding area to be clear of big rocks and unwanted stuff.

Here's what the vine clippings look like:



Once I got the vines deep enough and started filling the holes, I left them out about 2-3 inches:



Then installed the sleeves for added protection and the job is done!



I'm now looking at ordering a few more vines to plant. Maybe some Mouvedre and Grenache to make a nice field blend. Since one mature grape vine will yield about 10 pounds of fruit, I'd like to get at least 5 vines bearing fruit to make enough wine. 10 vines would be awesome but the wife may have an issue with me making the entire backyard into a vineyard!