But the weather is warming up and the vineyards in El Dorado county are starting to show their stuff. This little vineyard in Camino is primarily cabernet sauvignon but also has some gewürztraminer. I started taking care of the vineyard about a year ago and for 2009 made five gallons of wine from the crop. The vineyard had been let go for a couple of years and needed some work to make it healthier and increase its production. Earlier this year we did a detailed pruning and cleaning up of the vines, cutting away dead wood and starting to train new cordons. The vineyard is a quadrilateral cordon trellis. Imagine two capital T's where the base of the T's comes together to form the main vine. Basically, we're trying to establish good spur positions and eliminate the over-budding caused by not being pruned correctly in the past.

Yesterday I spent about six hours working through the vines, removing any shoots that didn't belong and cutting off any suckers at the base of the vine. By doing this, not only is all the energy directed to shoots containing fruit rather than non-productive vegetative growth but it opens up the vine, allowing more air flow, more sunlight, and reducing the chance of powdery mildew. I was happy to see that much of our pruning effort earlier in the year was paying off, and although early on, it appears the crop may have doubled over last year's.

In these photos you will see grape clusters that have not yet flowered, or bloomed, but they are about to. When they do, the outer casing will fall off each of the small green pods revealing the stamen, and after self-pollination, eventually a berry will form.

I was recently invited to a malbec tasting where the $12.50 Norton I bought from Costco took first place in a group of seven malbecs representing Argentina and California. The following gallery shows my score sheet with prices, and the wines in the order of group preference.

Malbec is a Bordeaux varietal, more often used in blends than as a straight varietal wine. Argentina has become known for the best malbecs in the world, more specifically, the Mendoza region. In the late 19th century, France was hit with the phylloxera insect and has since replanted, having grafted its malbec on primarily resistant American root stock. Argentina, however, thinking it was resistant to phylloxera, planted with straight malbec vines. Unfortunately, phylloxera is now starting to hit it as well.  

On a personal note, I have a little malbec in the Bordeaux field blend I made this year.

Note: I made a mistake on the Alamos on my score sheet. It should be seventh, not first for group rank.