Muscat Row...

The estate vineyard on Rex Hill has a single row of muscat vines, immediately across from the tasting room. It's been a tradition that the winery staff harvests that single row each year, laboriously trying not to cut the wrong thing -- like their fingers off! -- while giving the picking crew a "break." General ribbing occurs, of course, since the picking crew could take down the row in less than a tenth of the time that it takes us inexperienced sort. It's a lot of fun though, and allows those of us who support the winery from behind a computer screen a chance to get involved with the other side of the business. [Curious what it's like? Photos from our occasionally sunny 2007 harvest can be found on our flickr page!]

This year instead of just harvesting the fruit the winery staff will be tending the vines as well. Though the vineyard crew graciously pruned and tied down the new canes to get us off on the right foot we'll be hoeing, trimming, and training our individual vines with advice from Nadine, our viticulturist.

As our vineyard manager Patrick put it at the all staff meeting yesterday, we're a bit behind schedule right now -- the vineyard pool had bets on budbreak clustered in this week and we're about 2 weeks out still. So not much to report yet. However with the weekend's promised sunshine and warm temperatures we need to get out there and rub out some buds!

You can stay abreast of our progress here on the blog, and pictorially, here!