Family Farm Friday #64: A Grape Lesson

"Grapes are the most noble and challenging of fruits." ~Malcolm Dunn, Head Gardener to the 7th Viscount Powerscourt

I've managed to get behind on some of my posts from the summer, including this one that I've been planning for a while. You might remember that back in August I went to Napa for a little wine tasting tour with my girls (and our fantastic new friends from Dubai who we met on the bus!)
Well, because once you're an ag girl, you're always an ag girl, I enjoyed the opportunity to learn a little bit about a totally different kind of agriculture....grapes! (Just a reminder in case you forgot, we raise cattle, sheep, alfalfa, wheat and sorghum.....nothing close to grapes!)
In addition to enjoying a variety of samples on our tour, we also got to tour a couple of vineyards and a wine making area. Loud Oklahoma Girl and I put our ag degrees to work and along with a very nice older man from Texas (who we learned worked for Farm Bureau....further evidence that I was right last week when I said I feel like I should be falling for a Texas boy) asked a few questions about the grape growing and wine making process.
First off, we talked to a farmer at an organic vineyard in Napa. He talked about the stringent regulations that they have to meet, and about how careful they have to be to ensure that their crops are protected. He told a story about a farmer in the area whose neighbor did not use organic production methods and somehow his herbicide spray ended up getting into the organic field, causing a big disaster for the organic farmer. This is a total different way of farming than what I'm used to, so it was interesting to hear their take on it.
Second, we learned about harvesting at the Sebastiani winery in Sonoma. All of the grapes there are harvested by hand, not by machine. I guess I had pictured something like a grape combine (it's because I'm a wheat girl!) that apparently doesn't exist.
Then we learned a little about the wine-making process. You know all the oak barrels that you see around a winery? They actually do hold wine while it ages. And the type of wine that you put into a particular barrel is really important because the type of wood will impact the flavor of the wine. So, for example, you don't put some some sweet white wine into a barrel made of a very strong flavored wood. Instead, that's where the red wine goes.
My favorite bit of grape-growing info? If you ever go to Napa (and you should!) you'll see beautiful rose bushes everywhere. They are at all of the vineyards. I thought it was just for looks and tourism. Turns out, the rose bushes serve as a "canary in a mine" for wineries. Just like mines used to use canaries to tell them if the air was bad, vineyards use the roses to tell them if any diseases or pests are going to infect the grapes. Apparently any type of disease or pest will first attak the rose bushes. So if the farmers see problems with the roses, they can quickly take action to protect the grapes. Pretty darn genius, right?

Agriculture is such a diverse industry that it's amazing to learn how things are done in other parts of the country. And if you're ever somewhere that you have the opportunity to ask questions...trust me when I tell you....farmers LOVE to talk about their operations. So ask away! Stay tuned next week for a quick chat about the tobacco farming I saw in Tennessee!