Tympany Vineyards™

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I have many, many things to be thankful for today:  friends, family, health, happiness, and unlike many on the East Coast, a safe, warm place to live.

I must admit I am very thankful I do not have to trap and relocate raccoons (or anything else that might scamper into our vineyard) until next summer!

I know I still owe you the skunk story.  I will make it my holiday gift to you next week.

I know it’s been a while since my last post, but I have been very busy keeping the animals and birds from eating our grapes.

So far, I have relocated a dozen raccoons and a possum. I’ll tell you about the skunk another time!

The raccoons have been especially smelly this year! There are downsides to having a great nose for wine. Even with the raccoon all the way in the back of the SUV, the windows down, and the air conditioning blowing full blast in my face, I still could not get past the smell!

Half of them have been very big, and as a result, very heavy! Even so, when they run out of the trap, turn around to say “thank you” and then scamper off, I’m glad they walked into my vineyard instead of another where they would have been disposed of in a different maner.

Well, I finished weeding and removing the suckers on the upper vineyard last week, and just finished removing the suckers on the first 15 rows on the lower vineyard.

I swear the canes grow as I walk up and down the rows! I’ve been training the canes in the wires as I work my way up each row, and by the time I walk back down the next row, there are more canes that have reached the wires on the row I just finished.

The berry clusters are forming and it looks like it is going to be a big crop. I just picked up my very own raccoon trap, so we can relocate the little fellows before they eat our grapes.

I just returned from Seattle to find we had Bud Break over the weekend. It started raining overnight and is scheduled to continue through Friday. Winter in April!

“April showers bring May flowers” was never meant for Wine Country!

We actually had snow at the top of Geyser Peak & Mt. St. Helena last week! All while the Midwest was in the mid 80’s! How crazy is that?

We finally bottled the 2009, and we did bottle 5 cases of Magnums for the first time. I’m approving the etching/painting proofs for the labels tonight & delivering the bottles to NAPA this week. I can’t wait to see the finished product.

One week from Spring, Winter has finally arrived! The rain started overnight & the weather forecasters are predicting 3 to 6 inches! They are also showing rain everyday for at least the next 7 days. Of course, we just washed all the windows and washed the cars! We can’t complain because we really need the rain, and we have had more than our fair share of sun this winter.

I guess it’s time to start Spring Cleaning, and catch up on all the reading I’ve been stockpiling.

Well, we finally got some rain last week. Not enough to catch up, but at least a start. The sun is back, but we have high winds today. They may reach 70 mph this afternoon. Not the best day to have scheduled the gutters to be cleaned! OK, you may be thinking how can I trap & relocate raccoons, but not clean my own windows and gutters? There are 84 window panes and some of them are 3 stories high, and my balance is not adequate for those heights.

We just returned from the Classic Wine Auction in Portland. It is one of the largest wine auctions in the states. What fun! The best part was we were able to attend with some dear friends.

It is already 72 degrees at 11:00am! We will probably hit 80 degrees today.

Our vines have been pruned and are waiting for bud break. The daffodils are up, and the mustard has already been in the fields for a month. All the flowering trees are beautiful.

We have had very little rain, and they are even forecasting fire danger with strong winds in the next few days. So far, we are off to another strange weather year!

A couple of Tympany updates:

1) We are currently working on scheduling our 2009 bottling and we may bottle a few cases of magnums.

2) We will be releasing our 2008 this spring. Release date to follow.

We hope everyone survived Fat Tuesday!