The grapes are picked, the wine is in the barrel, and the vineyard is put to bed. And so ends another vintage at Dragon’s Vineyard and Wine Company. It is time for, after such a frenetic month, a good rest. We picked three times this year. The first was in the middle of September for the famous Dragon’s Kiss Rose` and twice in October: once for our award winning Dragon’s Lair Pinot Noir and a second time for a brand new venture. There will be more coming on that at a later date. For the first two picks we hired a professional crew who came and picked in a most efficient and proficient manner; they actually ran up and down the rows. It was fairly exhausting just watching them. But run they did, in good humor and chatting in a friendly manner between [...]

Could there be any location on this disreputable orb as lush, as verdant, as compellingly beautiful as the Willamette valley in June? I don’t think so and I get around. In the last newsletter we talked about ending out March with pruning and tie downs and the chores April and May would bring. This year bud break started around the 10th of April and was complete by the 24th. The month of May, the entire month, found us shoot-thinning. The painter JMW Turner exclaimed, “The Sun is God!” immediately before expiring. Spring in the vineyard could lead one to agree with him. The voluminous vegetation vigorously vies vertically in its voyage to that veritable Vesuvius viewed by one and all: The Sun. This is probably a good place for some disclosure. Your correspondent is an absolute sucker for alliteration. I surmise that some [...]

Some photos from my vineyard - Trudy Beautiful winter rainbow 2018. Oregon has lots of rain but rainbows make it all worthwhile. A late spring view of the crimson clover cover crop. Beautiful but also providing some additional nitrogen to feed the vines. Late summer view from the patio looking up towards the vineyard Getting ready for fall harvest 2017. Thank you Jerry's for the perfect buckets.