[tfries]

My wife and I have a small vineyard that we planted 5 years ago.  This year was an awesome growing year in Oregon.  We harvested our grapes on Friday and ended up with 470 lbs of Pinot Noir and 140 lbs of Pinot Gris.  There are still about 50 lbs of Riesling that are not ready yet.  Having a vineyard is really a lot of work between April and October and it keeps us from having time to brew beer, however, it does feel good to have a good payoff from our efforts.  Now that harvest is over, we are looking forward to getting back to brewing.  Here are some pictures of this years efforts.



Pinot Noir


Pinot Gris


140 lbs Pinot Gris


470 lbs Pinot Noir


Crushed Pinot Gris


Crushed Pinot Noir


Three Pinot Noir clones, 115, 667, 777.  Each are being fermented with different yeasts.

[Alewyfe]

Wow, way to go Tom! If your wines are 1/4 as good as your beers I'd trade my favorite dog to taste them.
What acreage is devoted to grapes?

My Husband and I have discussed the idea, but have been unwilling to bite off the commitment yet. We live on a rocky knoll where probably the only thing that would grow would be grapes. We have an acre or so that would probably work for grapes.

Do you do anything commercially with your wines, or is it strictly a labor of love.

Raising a glass of APA to your efforts. Glad the weather cooperated. It has been an awesome summer...
 

[denny]

Good on ya, Tom!  You guys make me feel so lazy!  OK, I guess I am.

[tfries]

Thanks Diane.  Our vineyard is close to half an acre.  It is not big enough to do anything with it commercially.  Our friends a street over have 2 acres in vines and they have enough to do something commercially with a growers privilege permit.  I would think that 2 acres would be a minimum.

[Jimmy K]

Very nice! I love the seasonal nature of wine and cider production. It's something you don't get from brewing.

[euge]

That is simply amazing! Beautiful too.

Looks like you've animal proofed them with the netting/mesh.

[tfries]

Very nice! I love the seasonal nature of wine and cider production. It's something you don't get from brewing.

Yeah, the apple harvest has big this year too.  We have picked over 500 lbs off of our trees.  There is still a whole lot more still on the trees.  Dried some, lots of apple sauce canned, 26 qts of juice canned, 20 gallons cider fermenting.

Here are two different pressings, about 2 weeks apart.  Interesting how the earlier pressing (the two on the right) is so much darker than the newer one.

[denny]

Our apple trees are so laden we've had several branches break off.  Maybe now Paula will believe in pruning!

[hopfenundmalz]

In my area we have 0 apples at the orchards. Damn 90F weather the first week of March, followed by a freeze.

[tfries]

I'm sorry to hear that.  Around here, there are trees everywhere loaded with fruit.  Most are just letting the fruit fall and rot.  I always think how nice it would be to be able to harvest all that fruit.  With the cycle of things, we probably will have a light crop next year.

[Slowbrew]

Iowa is having a terrible apple crop too.  It's funny that this situation can be good and bad.

It sucks for me in Des Moines but it has been a god send at my mother-in-law's house.  She's in her mid 80s, has 4 apple trees (30 year old trees) and just can't throw out any of the fruit.  This year she doesn't have to since there isn't any.  The other good side is that maybe she'll use the 100 bushels (hyperbole I know but she has a lot) she has stashed around the house from the last 10 years.

Your vinyard is beautiful.  That's yet another thing for the "mythical acreage" someday.  8^)

Paul

[tschmidlin]

Our tree is covered with apples, we're getting a lot this year.  Our grapes came in for the first time, just some table grapes.  Our wine grapes aren't ready yet.

Most impressive tfries, that's a great harvest and a lot of wine!