Posts Tagged ‘viticulturist’

#VineWatch13: Week 7! In-Row Tilling, & The Return Of The Fog!

February 18, 2013

For our Week 7 edition of #VineWatch13, I have something quite cool to share; a close-up look at a very cool vineyard procedure known as In-Row Tilling!

Full disclaimer, the footage below was shot at our Geyserville vineyards (meaning, it’s not of our specific Lytton Springs vine), but as it technically still constitues “watching” vines, I’m going to share anyhow, because it’s cool!

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Now, don’t go thinking we’ve forgotten our friend at Lytton Springs! Shall we have a lil’ looksee?

LS_I

My lord, what a beautiful creature …

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As to things here at Monte Bello, the fog has most definitely returned, as has the cold! I took the opportunity to hike up the mountain a ways this morning, and the particulate matter of the mist was prickly enough to give one pause as to the possiblity of a snowflake or two!

Being, as I was, up the slopes a bit, I took the liberty of snappin’ some snaps on my way back down, to give a bit of perspective as to where our lovely vine is nestled …

From the top of the slope ...

From the top of the slope …

Half-way down ...

Half-way down …

Opposite side of the road ...

Opposite side of the road …

Vine-side of the road ...

Vine-side of the road …

Our vine!

Our vine!

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Please stay tuned as we follow our lovely vines through the 2013 vintage!

We’re seven weeks in to-date, and for a quick look back, please enjoy the links below:

Week 6

Week 5

Week 4

Week 3

Week 2-Lytton Springs
Week 2-Monte Bello

Week 1

(if you’re following #RidgeVineyards on Twitter, you can also track VineWatch 2013 by specifically filtering for the following hashtag: #VineWatch13)

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Posted in Geyserville, Lytton Springs, Monte Bello, Vineyards and Oenology | 1 Comment »

#Harvest2012: Lytton’s Last Stand

October 21, 2012

“Only one block to go! It’s South Flat 2, and then we’ll call it a year.” — Will Thomas, Lytton Springs Viticulturist

The sun rose this morning on Lytton’s Last Stand.

Today, Sunday, October 21st, 2012, it ends. Lytton’s Last Stand.

The teams went to work …

And then there was one …

One block left to go.

One little 2.5 acre block of Mendocino-clone Zinfandel, planted in 1998 on 1103P rootstock.

And then there were none.

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Posted in Events & Photographs, Lytton Springs, RIDGE Staff, Varietals & Blends, Vineyards and Oenology, Winemaking, Zinfandel | Leave a Comment »

The Academy of Saint Ridge in the Fields

August 3, 2012

Vineyard people are funny. They have very unique senses of humor.

Some people send you an e-mail with the word “funny” in the subject line, and you open it, and you get a picture of a kitty with an uzi (a Kuzi?).

Not really that funny.

More the sort of thing you’d find taped to a wall in the back room of a doctor’s office. Taped up with an old piece of scotch tape. An old piece of scotch tape that has a sad strand of secretarial hair trapped under it.

But then you get e-mails with subject lines like “Inversion Layers are Funny.”

Take today, for example. Today, I got an e-mail from vineyard people. And the subject line was “Inversion Layers are Funny.” That’s vineyard people humor.

Today’s e-mail was from William The Conqueror Thomas, our Viticulturist at Lytton Springs.

He was on an early morning sojourn up Spring Mountain, to the York Creek vineyards. The Burger Knoll, specifically, which is adjacent to where our Dynamite Hill Petite Sirah comes from. At the base of the hill, the temperature was 54 degrees. And it was foggy. Up at the knoll? 84 degrees. At 8:15am.

Now THAT’S funny. Vineyard people funny.

Inversion Layers are Funny.

For those who may be unaware of the term, “inversion” in this case is a deviational atmospheric occurrence in which cooler air is held to lower altitudes, with heat rising with height. In a “traditional” climatic environment, the lower region, near the earth’s surface, is warmer than the air above it, because it’s being heated from below, courtesy of the sun’s radiation warming the Earth’s surface, which in turn then warms the layer right above it. This happens via a process called convective heat transfer. However, in an inversion, this model is “inverted,” such that heat increases with altitude, leaving the lower layer as the colder by comparison. In Northern California, this phenomenon occurs courtesy of coastal ocean upwelling, an oceanographic phenomenon which essentially drops a warmer layer on top of the cooler layer. Probably the most notable visual cue that all this is happening is the fog layer; this is essentially the bifurcation point between the lower and upper layers. You can see it in the photo above quite clearly.

We get a pretty dramatic version of the inversion here at Monte Bello as well. For those of you who’ve picnicked here before, you might recognize this scene:

Monte Bello Fog: Before

Though by the time you arrived, things probably looked more like this:

Monte Bello Fog: After

And that, is Vineyard People Funny.

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Posted in Events & Photographs, Lytton Springs, Monte Bello, Petite Sirah, RIDGE Staff, Vineyards and Oenology | 2 Comments »

Carignane!

June 2, 2012

Last night, we were all about Carignane. Carignane alone, Carignane in a vertical, Carignane in a Field Blend.

See, we were celebrating the release of the new 2010 Ridge Vineyards Buchignani Ranch Carignane, and we was jus’ all Carignane’d out.

Even winemaker Eric Baugher got in on the action, coming down as he did from the winery to taste with, and host, our First Friday guests.

And speaking of Carignane, Monte Bello isn’t the only vineyard where we’re singin’ Happy Bloomsday; Lytton West Carignane is positively poppin’!

Thanks to Lytton Springs viticulturist Will Thomas for the beautiful pic!

Carignane, Carignane, Car- Car- Cariginane!

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Posted in Carignane, Events & Photographs, Lytton Springs, Varietals & Blends, Vineyards and Oenology | Leave a Comment »

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