Replacing Vines and New Planting

[Bill Doyle]

Happy New Year all.

The vines we inherited need to be replaced – about 40.  Fencing etc is in great shape.

A few questions:

1) Where do you recommend purchasing the vines?  Can you purchase vines directly from wineries that you like?? 🙂

2) Viticulturalist recommendation?  Who do you recommend manage the planting and monthly maintenance?  Ideally someone who will also work with me and teach me.

3)  I’m in Orinda so the clay type soil.  Recommedations on great varietals that have succeeded here?  Love red blends – cab franc, pinot, zin, cab, etc

New to the membership!  thanks all in advance!

[David Hicks]

Hi Bill,   A lot of highly varied info you are seeking.  Much easier to get you proper answers with a voice conversation especially as you are just getting started.  There is a lot to this and if you would care to have a conversation feel free to call and perhaps I can point you in some correct directions?

Background:   15 years growing grapes, 11 years as a winemaker, numerous gold medal winning wines, Lamorinda AVA board member.

Ph:  925.997.1997      David Hicks

[Peter Clark]

Everybody:

How about posting short answers to pieces of this question?  I’ve got about 20 empty spaces in my 400 cab sauv/160 merlot vineyard. thinking of planting 20 cab franc — where do I buy/which clone?

Peter Clark (member/grower since 2011)

[Gerard van Steyn]

Unless there is an issue with the rootstock, vineyard spacing or layout, you may want to consider grafting new varieties onto your existing rootstock. Grafting is less expensive than replanting, and you will have fruit 2 or 3 years earlier.  I grafted some Cabernet over to Malbec a couple of years ago since I wanted a bit more Malbec, and it worked out great.

[Gerard van Steyn]

Answer to Peter Clark:

Depending on your vine spacing, you may be better off training the vines adjoining your empty spaces to grow into the empty spaces. Many of the vineyards in LWGA were planted on very close spacing (like mine at 3ft by 5ft) and the vines arguably will have better balance of vigor if every other vine was taken out, so the vines grew on a 6ft by 5ft spacing. I’m experimenting a bit with that now, even though its very hard for me to pull vines. And if you do fill in the spaces, you could still get Cab Franc production much earlier and less cost by grafting over some of your Merlot (or Cab). If interested reach out, and I would be happy to stop by and discuss.

[William English]

I second Gerard’s comment. You said you have the typical Orinda clay soil. Generally this will support a lot of vine vigor. Unless you already have 6-8 ft spacing between vines in a row, I would train existing vines to fill the gaps. These vines will probably end up with better balance.

If you are looking for a different variety, I like the idea of Cabernet Franc, which I have had very good luck with from my partner’s vineyard. I really like it blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.  I also second Gerard on the grafting.  You will get a crop much faster. My only caveat is that you should use a professional and not try it yourself if you want to be sure to have a high percent of grafts that take. Mary Leigh Miller has used 2 grafters, both with good results. The latest is Dave Komar of TopNotchVineyard. The other was Roberto Corona.

If you are looking for a vineyard manager, there are only 2 I can recommend right now, although that is not to say these are the only good ones out there: Dylan Rahn (Coastal Viticultural Consultants) and Roberto Corona. My preference is Dylan.

[Bill Doyle]

I used Dave at Top Notch and he was great. Very happy with the job and the clones.  Thanks for all the tips!