Change

There has been a lot of conversation about change in the ether lately. Here at Hawks View Cellars and Vineyard we took this concept to heart. Over the last 15 months a 2 acre block of 777 Pinot noir was removed and a small winery has been erected in its place. This building now houses twenty four barrels of beautiful estate Pinot noir and eight massive barrels of Sonoma County Syrah.

Its happened, we have open buds, a wisp of green softens the monochromatic landscape, tractors are rumbling through the vineyard, pulling a large steel shank through the vine rows to break open the soil, the soil takes it first gasp of air in many years as we turn the soils and trim the roots of our vineyard. The effect of this will stimulate the roots to push deeper and encourage new growth.  Behind this tractor follows another small tractor which is taking the roughed up soil and turning it in again to incorporate the cover crop that was planted in the waning days of summer 2008 thus enriching the soils and providing more available nutrients for our vines.

The amount of dirt work we are doing now is a change from prior years, our ability to look at petiole and soil analysis along with must nutrient profiles are giving us more focused information to allow us to customize the farming of the vineyard. Along with doing more dirt work we have been reducing the number of buds that we are leaving per plant. By reducing the buds we are looking for more uniformity in plant growth and keeping yields naturally reduced which helps play a role at thinning.  All this with an eye towards growing the best fruit we can.

We will now just cross our fingers and hope we don’t see hail or any frost over the next month.