What’s happening in the vineyard? An update on our new kid (aka variety) addition to our vineyard.

As previously shared, It is our long-time goal to exclusively farm all of our own fruit for Pressley Vineyards wine. In the past we purchased our Albarino from an outside source, however, we changed that this past spring.

Last March we took the first steps towards growing our own Albarino. Grafting is a technique that vegetatively joins two plants into one. In this case, we joined Gewurztraminer to Albarino. We grafted about an acre of our Gewurztraminer over to Albarino. Grafting from one variety to another was a first for Charlie and me, and was an exciting milestone. The process entailed; taking off the original Gewurztraminer cordon, and stumping the vine. Next, we had a team of professional grafters come in and chip budded two small pieces of Albarino buds to the original Gewurztraminer trunk. Lastly, grafting tape was wrapped around the two newly placed buds to securely hold the Albarino bud to the Gewertztaminer trunk.

It has been eleven months since we grafted over. Thus far we are having great success with this project! This winter we trained out the Albarino crop and regrafted any buds that did not take. We are expecting bud swell in the next few weeks, and soon after bud break will occur, we then we will start our pest management applications for the 2021 season, targeting powdery mildew, we will also bring the sheep in to graze down the cover crop! We will harvest our first crop off the vine this summer. Stay tuned for the release of our first McCormack Ranch Estate Albarino.

Check out the photos to see the grafting process back in March 2020 to the present.

Have questions? We would love to answer them! Email us!