Newsletter Volume III, Issue 1 (February 2005)
| Welcome Welcome to the February 2005 issue of our newsletter!  Newsletter Contents Tell your friends about our newsletter!  |
| New Domain Name! Finally, we have gone ahead and bought our own domain name - bluedoorvineyard.com. With this change, comes a few additional features that I think you will like. First off, no more popup ads - thanks for putting up with them during the first couple years of this site’s existence!  In addition we look to soon have a better, more user-friendly forum setup. Also there are future plans for a few web applications that I think will be helpful. Check back for updates and changes - I will send out information in future newsletters with any new feature releases to the site. Remember to change your bookmarks/favorites to point to http://www.bluedoorvineyard.com! |
| Winemaking I hope to soon purchase a white wine kit - have not decided which one to make. Most likely something like WinExpert’s Bourgeron Blanc. Check our site for updates to the Winemaking page.  Recently, I have had the good fortune to try some wine made by friends. One was a rose-style made with wild riparia grapes grown in Iowa. It was quite good - the alcohol was a bit high, but overall not bad for a purely riparia wine. I also just received a bottle of Foch wine from a friend. He grows his own fruit - so you could call this an ‘Estate’ wine, I guess. |
| Vineyard Status With winter nearing an end, I am starting to get excited to see how the vines fared. In recent checks, it looks as though most vines came through the winter in good shape. Even our young Foch seem ok - although we will have to wait and see if there was any root damage during the early winter cold snap (about -22F with no snow) we had. Also the lone Prairie Star that sent a shoot up in July seems ok as well.  The rest of the vines are in great shape. The Valiants are ready to be pruned and produce their first decent crop this season. Although I may have lost one vine late last fall due to a gopher…more on that later. The Frontenacs just about caught up to the Valiants last year and should also produce a small crop of fruit this fall. I would be happy to be able to make even a tiny batch of wine from our own fruit next fall. Check back for our progress. Now back to the gopher issue - from time to time I have seen gophers and evidence of their work in the vineyard. Up until late last fall, it was not a big deal. But then one of them must have chomped through the root of one of the Valiant vines and it looked like the vine was dead. But knowing how tough and resilient the Valiants have proven to be, I plan to wait and see if it sends up a shoot or shoots from its roots. Then I’ll just train a new trunk from that. It should not take long to replace the vine if it sends up shoots. If it does not, then I’ll explore other options - replace with new plant from cutting, layering, etc. On top of that I plan to start employing some techniques to deter the gophers - hopefully they will cooperate and leave the vines alone! Thanks! Thanks for taking the time to read our newsletter! We don’t pretend to be experts at growing grapes in cold climates, but rather we hope you find the newsletter an informative and entertaining source of information. If you do, feel free to forward the e-mail to others that may be interested. If you have suggestions for future topics or general comments/suggestions, feel free to send us a note using our Contact Us page. Our next newsletter should arrive in your inbox sometime soon. In the meantime, thanks for reading and take care! Don’t forget to tell your friends about our newsletter! |
Grapelog » Newsletter Archive Said,
September 16, 2006 @ 2:15 am
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