Category Archives: Organic Farming
Here at the estate winery, we have planted our 11 acres to Rhone varietals – Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, and Viognier. This decision was richly researched. Winemaker Greg Stach knew our vineyard needed to be replanted. He was considering replant ingto Rhone varietals since our climate and geography is very similar to that region in France. Then in spring 2006, he took a research trip to the Rhone region in France. This trip sealed the deal. He loved the Grenche, Syrah, Mourvedre, and Viognier and knew it was a great fit with our terroir. We started the replanting of our estate chardonnay shortly thereafter.
Greg chose to partner with the Nursery at Tablas Creek Vineyard. They import cuttings of Rhone varietals from the well-known Chateau Beaucastel. Landmark purchased both the rootstock and budwood from Tablas Creek. At the estate, we planted the rootstock in the spring of 2007. Once … Read more »
Thanks to the magnificent heat we are getting here in Sonoma Valley, the vines are flowering and growing at a rapid pace.… Read more »
Kathleen Hill reports of her visit to Landmark:
Landmark Vineyards’ owners Mike and Mary Colhoun invited friends to learn about the conversion of their 11-acre vineyard facing Highway 12 from conventional to organic farming by the renowned organic farmer Phil Coturri.
Coturri explained how after a phylloxera invasion of 2004, they turned a negative to a positive and basically plowed deeper to bring more bugs and minerals to the surface and turned the vineyard to an angle so that the September sun would hit both sides of each vine equally.
Having suffered through much wine tasting research in France, winemakers Eric Stern and Greg Stach decided to favor southern Rhône reds like Chateau Neuf du Pape, planting mourvèdre, viognier and grenache, many of the vines arriving via Beau Castel and Tablas Creek winery in Paso Robles. The result is their Esprit du Rhône.
Mary Colhoun’s dear friend and chef, Carol … Read more »
Bud Break
On March 15th the sheep left our vineyard after a month of hard work. One more week would’ve been ideal, but the vines were beginning to swell. Three days later the buds began to break. First to break was Grenache, followed by Syrah. The Counoise and Viognier were roughly 10 days behind. The last to break was Mourvedre which just started this week.
Bud Break ushers in a new growing season, and the start of frost watch. Vines in their dormant stage can withstand fairly low temperatures. However, once the vines show signs of life we must be protect them from sub-35 degree weather. Freezing temps are common in the Spring, typically occuring between 5-7am. When our vineyard weather station sounds the alarm, our cellar master rolls out of bed and activates the sprinkler system.
Pruning
This year we changed our pruning technique to a form of Cane … Read more »
Technical Vineyard Report
by Viticulturalist, Mayacamas Olds
Vineyard Covercrop
The covercrop is primarily composed of Filaree, Minors Lettuce, Common Chickweed, Persian Speedwell, Mallow, Common Groundsel, some Bur Clover, oats and Calendula. Many of the plants are already blooming and seed will be set in some cases early. The “covercrop” is lush and performing well. It will produce a good amount of biomass for the soil.
Sheep
Sheep have been brought in to help control covercrop plants. With the help of a herding dog, they move through the vineyard “mowing” down the lush covercrop. The blocks the sheep have been in, look really good for the most part. They are not eating much of the Calendula, but they seem to be doing a really nice job of getting the cover crop down. This is great for frost protection issues.
The sheep are getting very fat off of the covercrop and both … Read more »
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