A Year in The Vineyard - All Comments

RE: Winter Pruning: The Devil is in the Details

Jared Bihun — Fri, 16 May 2025 19:47:30 GMT

Working on a paper about Pruning currently and this was a great help. Thanks!

RE: The Harvest

Steve Matthiasson — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:53:53 GMT

Christopher John, the fruit makes malic acid right up until veraison or so. They manufacture it between fruit and veraison, but mostly during the pre-veraison development period. I have no idea what the levels are at that time, I've never tested the fruit before veraison, but I'd think at least 6 g/l, maybe even a bit higher.

RE: The Harvest

Christopher John — Thu, 16 Apr 2015 17:48:21 GMT

Thank you Steve for the great article. One thing I always wondered is how the grapes create malic acid. Is the level at its highest right at fruit set or does the vine continue to build malic acid up until veraison? Would the vine have like 6 g/l of Malic acid at its highest amount? Thanks.

RE: The Harvest

Alicia Wilbur — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:28:06 GMT

Always love your articles! Thanks for sharing.

RE: The Harvest

Christopher Gaither — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 09:37:30 GMT

Fantastic insight. We often overlook or even forget the hard work it takes to grow, tend and harvest grapes before seeing the final product. Thank you.

RE: The Harvest

Benjamin Parrish — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 01:31:07 GMT

Wonderful post. You don't often get an overview of the actually picking process. Beautiful.

RE: The Harvest

Lauren Holbrook — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 21:19:40 GMT

Informative, exciting and beautiful read! Thank you for sharing, Steve.

RE: Disease Management: The Big Three

Steve Matthiasson — Wed, 14 May 2014 03:54:52 GMT

Hi Cameron, I'll tell you how Vitiseal works in ten years! The research data is good.

Thanks Tali, Brian, Anthony, and John! It's interesting trying to distill down this stuff that we deal with every day but don't have to describe to anyone.

RE: Disease Management: The Big Three

John Paul Wilkinson — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 15:32:33 GMT

Thank you for this report. You've laid out such a dense topic very clearly.

RE: Disease Management: The Big Three

Anthony Mueller — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 09:55:56 GMT

Steve Matthiasson is wine Pimp. I love what you do, man! Keep up the great work brother!

RE: Disease Management: The Big Three

Cameron Porter — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 19:08:06 GMT

Great piece Steve. I started working this year with a vineyard here in the Santa Ynez Valley that has some eutypa issues, and we were able to wait to prune in early spring. I haven't worked with Vitiseal, but that sounds like an interesting option. Have you worked much with it, and if so, have you liked the results?

RE: Disease Management: The Big Three

Brian Nicholas — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 18:56:04 GMT

Great info Steve! Thank you for sharing it.

RE: Disease Management: The Big Three

Tali Dalbaha — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 15:32:45 GMT

Thank you Steve - This is great!

RE: Yield and Wine Quality

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 02:06:56 GMT

We use alot of the cut grapes for verjus, but I'm fortunate to have a restaurant and greenhouse composting at the vineyard I work at. I'm a little on the fence, but I personally like a green Bordeaux, some may not. I do feel for the winemaker in the sense that he or she never wants to make an inferior product, the whole awards system, blah blah, yet as much as consistency plays a role, sometime Mother Nature is not kind to you after you've gone through this process and makes me wonder sometimes how less catastrophic it would be to lose grapes if we let more hang or what if we went for higher acid than less. I'm surprised our winemaker has a full head of hair.

RE: Yield and Wine Quality

William Davis — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:43:37 GMT

Steve,

Thanks for the article! I appreciate the way you ascribe yields to 'wine style' rather than quality, but I did have a question: Regarding yield, how much do you take into account the rootstock and clonal selections used when fruit or color thinning? Or are there more important factors to consider?