Wines & Vines

March 2017 Vineyard Equipment & Technology Issue

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28 WINES&VINES March 2017 A Google search for the exact phrase "wines are made in the vineyard" produced 40,600 results, making it one of the industry's mantras, along with "our Chardonnay is buttery" and "I thought we'd be cash-flow positive by now." All over- used, yet accurate. Since much of winery success and wine quality is based on grape quality, I interviewed several winemakers and viticultur- ists about what they currently do in the vineyard to enhance wine flavor and assure consistency from year to year. They shared with me what data they collect, cropping levels, harvest criteria and advanced technologies employed. Rodney Strong Vineyards Since 1959, Rodney Strong Vineyards has been one of Sonoma County's premier wine operations, producing 850,000 cases annually under the Rodney Strong and Davis Bynum labels. The winery owns 1,200 acres of vineyards exclusively in Sonoma County. While Rodney Strong purchases two-thirds of its grapes, the grape contracts provide viticultural control. Both winemaker Justin Seidenfeld and winegrower Ryan Decker shared their approaches to growing and winemaking. Crop level decisions: Seidenfeld and Decker stated that they no longer look at tons per acre, measuring pounds of fruit per vine instead. As Decker notes, while "yield per acre is easy to trace, pounds per vine speaks to what the vineyard is doing." They aim for a weight/vine target specific to the vineyard location and varietal; for example in a Sonoma County Pinot Noir block, the target is 4 to 6 pounds per vine, depending on the clone. They believe the old "tons per acre" method leads to under-cropping vigor- ous vines and over-cropping the weaker ones, leading to variable grape quality and a wide range in vine health within the vineyard. Decker noted that tar- geting level fruit weight p e r v i n e m a k e s t h e grower work to equal- i z e v i n e v i g o r t o a c h i e v e t h e w e i g h t per vine target. He adjusts irrigation, fertilization and cover crops to achieve more uniform vine health. This increases consistency and quality and avoids overworking the vine- yard. Decker said that following this protocol means the only way to increase fruit yield is to increase vine density when replanting. Vineyard health measurements: Ryan stated that his team does petiole sampling at bloom and at véraison to measure the following nutrient levels: nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, calcium, boron and zinc. He added that they may also look at chlorides if the soil is known for high salinity. Harvest decisions: Seidenfeld seeks "a physiologically ripe grape, so measuring pH and TA is almost as important as Brix." Ideally, all blocks and all vines would have the same physiologi- cal ripeness. He tries to avoid hard tannins from underripe fruit or chalky tannins from overripe fruit. If it's overripe, "It's just desiccating, so everything is out of whack." Advanced technology: Seidenfeld believes that in striving to improve quality, "Technology is the helping hand." An ex- ample is his use of selective mechanical harvesting and field sorting. Machine harvesting allows him to pick at night and bring in cooler fruit, which improves wine quality and saves considerable energy in cooling warm grape must. In addition, it helps to avoid any labor-shortage issues. The Pellenc harvester then field sorts fruit, separating ideal berries from raisins. Decker stated that the sorter unit "has replaced six or seven people on an incline conveyor and does a better job." Additional examples include the extensive use of VineView's aerial imaging and spectral mapping to identify areas of high and low vigor, which then directs their efforts to balance the vineyard. They also use advanced methods of monitoring vine water status via evapotranspiration and stomatal conductance measurements. Looking to the future, they will add continuous soil moisture monitoring to their vineyard weather stations and investigate other remote-sensing devices to be able to keep tabs on their vineyards 24 hours a day. n ANDY STARR How Wineries Use Vineyard Technology Winemaking VineView allows Rodney Strong to assess individual vine vigor from above.

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