Hello Fellow Wine lovers

It was so nice to see our members on our recent Zoom meeting on October 25th. 

The main topic of the meeting was to learn how everyone was doing with their harvest and wine making so far this year.  The general consensus was that the fruit has never looked so good!  There was little powdery mildew to deal with, and the animals gave us a break this year.  Maybe it was because of the electric fencing installed recently?   Birds were still there though.

David Hicks mentioned that he had found a very reliable bird fencing system that has worked very well for him.  So I invited him to prepare a presentation so that we can share with all our members.  Stand by for that one!

We talked about fertilization, alternatives to commercial petroleum based products, such as composting and living soils.  Composting will be a topic of one of our upcoming general meeting topics,  so stand by for that one as well.    

We also reviewed how to test the vineyard for deficiencies in nutritional and/or mineral needs.  The advice  given was to take a petiole sample just before flowering and if you want to set up for the following year’s harvest, to take another sample for analysis right at verasion.  The samples are sent in to a lab and they will determine if there are any imbalances to be addressed.  They will even give you exact amounts of the nutrient or minerals to add to achieve your goals!  I will post sources of laboratories  so look at our website under viticulture forum soon for laboratory suggestions and procedures.

Harvest numbers were up this year.  We like to keep track of the LWGA vineyard harvests so please let me know how you did. Please send this information to 5powderhounds@gmail.com   Those of us who make wine as well have completed our harvests and have already started producing the wines.  The good news is that no one has reported any smoke tainting detected,  yet.  I say yet because the smoke taint can present at any time.  Even after bottling!  There are all sorts of articles describing how to test, analyze and predict the effects of smoke tainting, but in the end, no one really knows.  This is a relatively new phenomenon. We might be lucky enough in Lamorinda to have been far enough away from the fires to have dodged the bullet.  Only time will tell us for sure.  So, let’s hope for the best.

The meeting lasted 1.5 hours and was very informative indeed. I hope to see you again at our next meeting!

Sincerely;

Daniel Howsepian

LWGA President

Hello again!

Just a reminder to save the date for our planed Zoom meeting on October 25, @ 4 PM. We want to see you and find out how your harvest came along, and if you’re making wine, how that’s coming along this year. So please join us at:

https://warriortrading.zoom.us/j/9252007676 .

Daniel Howsepian

President LWGA

Hello Wine Lovers!

Early October and most of us are just wrapping up our harvesting for the season.

 Just as we were figuring out how to get together safely with close friends and family in small groups outdoors, respecting social distancing, masks,  etc.  due to the Covid-19  threat, we get another challenge thrown at us with weeks of smoke making it unpleasant and unhealthy to  gather outdoors!  What a year!

To add to all of that, some of us have been discovering smoke tainting in our musts and fermented wines;   Happily, not too many. The weather has begun to give us clear  smokeless days.  So nice to be able to see the surrounding mountains again!

As mentioned in my last message to you, we are planning to hold another Zoom meeting on October 25 @ 4 PM.  Please click on:

https://warriortrading.zoom.us/j/9252007676   and follow instructions to log on the zoom meeting.

We had a very good turnout in July and we would really like to see you again. 

The topic of the meeting will be about you.  We want to know;

– How you’re doing,

– How was your harvest;

– What was your yield this year;

– Where are you with winemaking if you make wine;

– Have you experienced smoke taint in your harvest/fermentation.

– Anything else you would like to share with us.

So hang in there!  You’ll be happy to know that our Lafayette wine tasting facility is moving along very well.  

Another bit of news is that our bonded winemakers are having a wonderful sampling experience with the Orinda Chamber of Commerce in November!  Chamber members  will be tasting selected samples of Lamorinda AVA wines which will then be available for sale in time for the holidays!  Great exposure for our AVA! 

Also, many thanks to all of you who have sent in your annual dues! 

Best wishes to  everyone and please join us on October 25th.

Sincerely;

Daniel Howsepian

President LWGA

Hello fellow wine growers:

I am sure that many of you are looking at those magnificent grapes right about now and wondering when to pick. I came across an interesting you tube from Pennstate, College of Agricultural Webinar about just that. I found this very interesting and I hope you do too. It’s worth the 30 minutes to view.

Enjoy!

Daniel Howsepian

I’m delighted to share with you the aggregated information from our recent member survey. As a reminder, the incoming Board put out a survey to current membership to invite comments on how to best serve the needs of the membership.

Attached is an at-a-glance overview of the Association, and here’s the link to the breakdown of the results received from participants.

The highlights:

This feedback will be used to shape educational and social events over the coming year, as well as making it easier to match needs with expertise.

Keep letting us know of your successes and other updates that you’d like to share with the broader community.

Amy Schofield, Board Member

Dangerously hot weather to continue for nearly a week. Be careful outside, hopefully we won’t see major wildfires, and remember to give your vines extra water this week.

I know it might be a little early to talk about winemaking. We’re all admiring and patting ourselves on the back for how beautiful our grapes are right now completing verasion.

However, it’s never too early to be thinking about the harvest and what we need to do and prepare for when it happens. After all, we don’t want to mess up those beautiful grapes we will be picking!

I just posted in the Winemaker Forum a very informative article all about YAN and why it matters. Worth the read!

Hello fellow Winelovers;

If you missed our last Zoom meeting on Sunday, July 26, I’m sorry to have tell you that you missed a good one! There were 15 people who signed in who participated in a lively discussion of many subjects.

We started off the meeting by having our resident Webmaster, Bill Scanlin, walk us through various sections of our website. Navigating any website can sometimes be confusing, but Bill made it easy for us to understand the tools available to the user, and showed us how to access and add to many of the features and information available to any member. There is a wealth of information accumulated over many years for the taking. Pictures, viticulture and wine making info; member info; resources and classified section; etc. There will also be included shortly a new sign up area if you would like to volunteer to help with harvesting, bottling, netting a vineyard, or other activities you might like to learn about and to get to know your fellow winelovers!

We then moved over to a free social discussion which turned out to be very dynamic! Many subjects were touched upon such as Electric fencing success stories; trapping and handling of critters in the traps; watering at the post verasion stages; bear home intrusions in Tahoe; desirable grape varietal selections at planting of new vineyards; It was noted by one of our participants that we are 10 solar days ahead of last year in indicating that the harvest this year might be early by as many days! So get ready…

We also had Bill English give us a report on the status of the much anticipated opening of the new Wine Tasting/Production facility in downtown Lafayette. While there will be some limited production of wine during the construction this fall, it will be mostly for testing purposes and that the facility will be up and running by next season! Keep up the good work Larry & Bill!

After the quickest 1-1/2 hours I have recently spent on a Zoom meeting, the meeting was adjourned. We will most likely have our next general meeting in September by Zoom as well.

As a last note, if you have not yet sent in your renewal for the LWGA, please do so soon so that we can continue to provide the services for you. Thank you!

We at the board hope you will have a healthy and productive summer!

Sincerely;

Daniel Howsepian

President LWGA

Hello fellow wine lovers!

Here we are in the middle of July, and I have to say, my vineyard has never looked so good!  I have heard this from many of our members. 

We had a scheduled regular LWGA meeting for July 26, which was to be held at my home @ Raisin d’Etre Vineyards in Lafayette and I was looking forward to seeing everyone and to showing everyone the vineyard this year.  We were to have a short educational session about Composting, led by our resident Certified Composter, Gerard VS, and then to our usual social time together.

Sadly, the Covid-19 pandemic is showing no sign of abating! In fact, as you surely know, it’s getting much worse!  We must double down on our united effort to shut this thing down. 

 
So, once again, regrettably, we must cancel our planned July  26 regular meeting in Lafayette.

 
In our efforts to stay engaged, we will be holding instead a Zoom meeting on July 26 @ 4 PM. 

We will be having as our special speaker, Bill Scanlin, walking us through how to navigate through our LWGA website.  There is a great deal of information posted on our website and we want you to know how to find what you need.  The link to the meeting will be:
https://warriortrading.zoom.us/j/9252007676

At our last Zoom meeting, we had a great turnout and we at the board hope to see you sign in and join us at this meeting.

 
Sincerely:
Daniel Howsepian

President 

Here is an interesting and detailed short to long range weather forecast. It forecasts a record hot summer, and, unfortunately, high fire danger: