Ariduswinecoblog?format=rss

Sometimes we see javelina running across the crushpad; we haven’t seen any yet this year. We are seeing a lot of lizards, on the crushpad and in the winery: primarily it’s Alligator Whip Tail lizards, who looked to be about 6 inches long when we first saw them in March. Today they’re as big as 9 inches. They’re not dangerous but in fact very pla...

People ask us about the impact of monsoons on the grapes and the vineyard. Of course every year is different. For the last two years huge monsoons were predicted but didn’t materialize. They usually come around harvest time, but we can’t predict for this year, at least, as of right now. They can delay picking for a few days, but that’s about it....

One of the key aspects of bottling is quality control, which includes checking the cleanliness and sterility of the bottling line before we start it up. If when we test the equipment anything goes over our threshold we have to stop, re-sanitize and start over. Luckily this doesn’t happen very often but it’s an important protocol we follow.

Assistant Winemaker Ell is showing us a device called a Nutriscope. It is made by a French Company called Senseen. They have come up with a way to use different wavelengths of light to measure the nutrients of a plant. It is super-new ground breaking technology that we are putting to use in the vineyard. We are able to get a stress index for the...

We are starting to see the first signs of summer as the heat has been cranking up the last two weeks. We had incredibly early bud break. Last year bud break was April 1, with Sauvignon Blanc being the first varietal to “push.” The other varietals took 3-4 weeks to start showing growth.

This year, we had 6” sh...