{"id":820,"date":"2020-03-05T00:24:15","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T00:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/?p=820"},"modified":"2021-12-21T23:26:36","modified_gmt":"2021-12-21T23:26:36","slug":"vineyard-update-mustard-bloom-and-budbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/vineyard-update-mustard-bloom-and-budbreak\/","title":{"rendered":"Vineyard Update: Mustard Bloom and Budbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We saw the first signs of the 2020 vintage in our Sangiovese Block 2 on Winston Hill on Leap Day. Mild temperatures coupled with no rain has spurred an earlier than average budbreak this year \u2013 about two weeks earlier than 2019. February was one of our driest winter months ever with not a single drop of perception on record. Luckily, the forecast for the second week of March calls for some rain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sangiovese buds at Winston Hill – February 29, 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As for now, most of the vines are still dormant, awaiting spring and the beginning of the growing season. While the vines are still bare, they are flourishing with color. This is mostly thanks to cover crops \u2013 the plants that are cultivated between the vines, as a means of enriching the soil. Over the next month, most of it will be mowed down, but right now it\u2019s in full bloom. We plant a wide range of cover crops based on each vineyard\u2019s specific soil type to improve soil health and to provide habitat for beneficial insects. Among our cover crops are legumes, clover, brome, and the most eye-catching of all \u2013 mustard, whose brilliant yellow flowers are currently lining the floor of our Lewis Vineyard in Carneros and Benjamin Vineyard in Rutherford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lewis Vineyard in Carneros<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In our case, mustard\nis a volunteer cover crop, naturally growing in the mild winter weather. Much\nlike the red poppies of Tuscany, the iconic yellow flowers mark the beginning of\na new season in Napa Valley. It thrives January through March and up until bud\nbreak, when it is tilled into the soil to provide valuable nutrients and phosphorus\nto the budding vines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pruning at Lewis Vineyard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our vineyard crew has just wrapped up with winter pruning<\/a>, a standard grapegrowing practice that helps awaken the vine from dormancy by removing canes from the previous year and allowing for new shoot growth. All in all, it\u2019s looking like the 2020 vintage is off to a good start, and we hope it will continue! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We saw the first signs of the 2020 vintage in our Sangiovese Block 2 on Winston Hill on Leap Day. Mild temperatures coupled with no rain has spurred an earlier than average budbreak this year \u2013 about two weeks earlier than 2019. February was one of our driest winter months ever with not a single […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[258],"tags":[7,192,18,81,14,131,101],"class_list":["post-820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vineyards-winemaking","tag-featured","tag-mustard-bloom","tag-napa-valley","tag-vineyard","tag-wine","tag-wine-education","tag-winemaker"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/i-FFv6jD9-X5-2.jpg?fit=1500%2C1000&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/parYsd-de","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frankfamilyvineyards.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}