VINEYARD IN BLOOM
June 16th, 2011
Bloom was observed in the vineyard on Monday, June 13th, which is approximately 1 week behind normal. This vintage seems to be catching up for lost time considering bud break was 3 weeks behind normal.
SPRING PLANTINGSJune 14th, 2011This Spring, we planted 4 acres or Muscat Canelli grapes and 19 acres of Corcorde grapes. Below are some photos and video clips of our crew installing the vineyard infrastructure.
RECAP OF THE 2010 SEASONFebruary 7th, 2011By Mike Miller, Grape Grower & Owner Each winter, I try to inform our customers about how the season is progressing, challenges that we see coming, and my take as to how we are doing in the cellar. Again this year, our first concern is directed at the health of the vines. The entire State was under a Winter Storm Advisory on the evening of Nov. 23, 2010. The forecast for our area was temperatures approaching 0° Fahrenheit. Until that date, we’d had an unusually temperate fall. A significant number of green leaves were still on the vine. Our harvest had gone longer than usual due to a cooler than normal growing season and so we were somewhat concerned about the susceptibility of our vines to the extreme cold. The latest bud hardiness numbers published by WSU showed that most of our varietals could be in jeopardy if temperatures reached negative numbers. Unfortunately, we did reach those critical temperatures (at least -2° F in our lowest, coldest sites). Since Thanksgiving, we have been generating bud damage levels from all of our blocks of grapes. The idea is that if we know what the level of damage is in each block, we can make the appropriate pruning adjustment for us to crop the grapes at the desired level.
The good news is that our particular area was spared from some of the more extreme temperatures that many of the other growing regions experienced. Most of our varietals received minimal to moderate levels of bud injury, and our ability to produce targeted tonnages is not in doubt. The bad news is that we did suffer significant damage to some of our key varieties, most notable would be Merlot and Syrah. We are hopeful that we can compensate our losses through pruning adjustments; however, the lower portions of the vineyards may be damaged to a level beyond that possibility. In addition, a couple of our Rhone whites, Rousanne and Marsanne, may not crop at all this season. On the red side, Zinfindel, Mouvedre, and Barbara all received major bud injury so we are anticipating that availability of those particular varieties might be extremely limited. I should note that we feel extremely lucky to have come through the event as well as we did. A colloquialism that I often site to customers is that farmers do not need to make regular trips to Las Vegas because we gamble every day of our lives. This past year, with all of its botrytis issues and now the cold weather issues, is a prime example of what can happen in the coarse of a few months. Based on our sampling information, we have commenced our spring work, which includes hedging and pruning the vines. We have started with Riesling, a variety with virtually no damage. As we move across the vineyard we will move into those varieties where adjustments will be necessary. The pruning strategy will be to finish with the most damaged blocks in order for us to have more time to observe the vines before decisions need to be made. This year we will also be planting a new Riesling vineyard. With the winter damage comes the need to evaluate the nursery stock that we are purchasing for the planting. Greenhouse studies have already commenced to aid us in deciding if the plant material has been damaged and if so to what extent that injury has had on the viability of the plants. If everything looks good planting will commence late February. Traditionally, we install the irrigation system and trellis just subsequent to planting so that by the first of May we will be able to start installation of the growth tubes (which serve as mini greenhouses). Growth tubes are placed around each plant to help stimulate the establishment of balanced, healthy vines. By the end of the Summer, the new vines should be established on the cordon wire, leading to the possibility of producing a very small crop in 2012. We are also contemplating the planting of a Concord vineyard if the plants are available. For those of you who may not be aware, we currently have 200 acres of Concord grapes that are sold exclusively to Welches for grape juice. As we remember the 2010 crush, we will have plenty of bad memories based on the onset of botrytis and the subsequent crop loss. However, plenty of positive developments make 2010 memorable for the quality that will be found in the wines. The cooler growing season afforded us the opportunity to produce our first Pinot Noir. As we taste that wine, I am extremely confident that it will be an instant hit with our club members. I will let Marcus discuss the wines more fully, but as we taste these young wines in the cellar, we are convinced that the quality is good, if not stellar. We will always remember that 2010 was the year we moved to Woodinville. The move has been very exciting. We have made many new friends in that venue and have found a staff that truly gets who we are and love to tell the story and have a strong belief in the quality of our wines. Some of the faces have changed over the year but Jim Loosemore has emerged as the face of that facility. Jim has been a club member since our first year in Prosser. He has spent a lifetime in the insurance industry, so the change of pace has reinvigorated him, in much the same way as this business has done for me on this front. We are extremely happy that Jim has come on board and he and his lieutenant, Brian Carter, are doing a great job with the tasting room in Woodinville. Once again, I would like to thank you all for your support of our Winery and Family over the last year. We feel strongly that your faith in us will be validated again this year as we begin to figure out what other opportunities our presence in Woodinville will present. We wish you all the best in the coming year and hope that we have the opportunity to spend time with each of you in the coming year. RECAP OF HARVEST 2010… A GROWER’S PERSPECTIVENovember 12th, 2010The 2010 grape harvest will be remembered for many years to come. The long winter and cool growing season resulted in a slow to mature crop and higher than normal acid levels. In addition, the untimely late summer rains resulted in extremely high levels of botrytis (a wine grape fungus) in specific vineyard blocks. The net result, from the vineyard perspective, was that many of the blocks required additional crop thinning to drop the late season rot, hand-picking rather than mechanical harvesting where rot was most severe, and in some cases loss of the entire vineyard block. All of these factors significantly impacted the profitability of our farm. On a brighter note… with these challenges came opportunities. Generally, the Yakima Valley is thought of to be too warm of a site for Pinot Noir. But with the coolest growing season in my memory, we are taking advantage of this opportunity to produce a world class Pinot Noir. Additionally, the botrytis will give us opportunities in wine making that are not available in normal growing seasons. In general, there are two types of botrytis infections that can occur on wine grapes: Although the farm was affected in a negative fashion this fall, one of the more note worthy items is that the vineyard blocks that were designated to Airfield were clean and of high quality. And we are pleased to announce that the 2010 wines that we’ve been sampling in the cellar have great balance and flavor. I would like to thank each one of you for your support and loyalty. I have found that this has been the most rewarding period of my life and despite the economic challenges and now the natural challenges of 2010, I would not trade these days for any others.  OCT. 9, 2010 – Jim Loosemore, Airfield's Woodinville Tasting Room Manager, shows an example of botrytis. (Photo taken by Jason Fukura of f/8.3 photography) Meet the Staff: Gary NiemeyerNovember 3rd, 2010
In this month’s Airfield newsletter, we are paying tribute to Gary Niemeyer. Gary, the lead foreman of Airport Ranch, has worked with all four generations of the Miller family. With an impressive 50 years of service under his belt, Gary has been an integral part of the Ranch’s success and will be retiring February 20th, 2011. Gary’s career began on February 20th, 1960 – only 6 days before his 19th birthday – when Gary asked Don Miller (the owner of Airport Ranch) if he needed a hard working young man to work on the farm. With no hesitation, Don immediately hired him, and Gary began working as an irrigator on the farm. At that time, Airport Ranch had a very diversified portfolio of crops: mint, corn, sugar beets, wheat, alfalfa, asparagus, and cattle. Gary made Airport Ranch not only his place of work, but also his home. Gary and his wife Joan moved into the old Mess Hall, which was part of the original WWII Airbase. The Mess Hall became his primary residence for close to a decade. As the late 60’s approached, the talk of planting grapes soon became reality. Gary recalls when we planted our first grapes. In those early days, growing grapes was trial and error you could say, a scientific study, trying to figure out which variety would best suit in our valley. We learned about viticulture by doing it, and incorporating our agricultural knowledge of other crops. While we were fine-tuning our viticulture skills, mint and sugar beets still remained our primary production and cash crops. Over the next five years, we experimented with over twenty different grape varieties. And based on our early results, Chardonnay became our wine grape of choice. We still have three rows of our initial 1968 Chardonnay plantings in production. From 1968 onward, Airport Ranch has converted nearly all of the original crops to vineyards. Currently, we have approximately 860 acres of wine grape and 26 different wine grape varietals. Over the course of time, as Airport Ranch evolved, so did Gary’s roles and responsibilities. Gary transitioned into our farm’s mechanic, engineer, supervisor, & overall Ranch Foreman. Gary’s hard work and dedication has been an integral part of the success of our operations. Gary and his son, John, are an amazing team on the farm. They can modify just about anything to keep Airport Ranch running smoothly. For example, they were the first to modify a grape harvester by adding a heated cab. Their creation made it back to the Korvan harvester company who now offers this option from the factory. This past year, I have had the pleasure of working with Gary. He is incredibly skilled at what he does. I guess you can say that Gary is a master of many trades in the farming industry. Although Gary is retiring, I am sure he will continue to be a familiar face and have a presence on the farm and at the winery from time to time. With fifty years of service under his belt, Gary‘s career has been a part of 4 generations at Airport Ranch. On behalf of the crew at Airfield Estates & Airport Ranch, I would like to salute Gary for his hard work, dedication, & countless contributions. Meet the Staff: Tony SanchezAugust 25th, 2010 |
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