It is May 18 and we have just completed a very important operation in our vineyard: Shoot Thinning and Suckering. This is the process by which the vine’s shoots are thinned to produce better grapes.

Vines before suckering.

After pruning this is a key step in maintaining vine balance and creating a canopy ideal for the grape growing process. During March the vine buds develop into shoots and leaves. In the case of the vigorous vines of our vineyards as many as 40 shoots and 60 fruit clusters can develop from a single vine.

If during the growing phase everything is left on board, the vine will suffer in trying to grow all the foliage and will develop poor quality grapes. Typically, in this case, after the blossoming of the cluster, fruit set will be poor. So in April and May the Thinning and Suckering operation is carried out to leave on the vine only a desired number of shoots. These will develop into canes and will carry the healthy and high quality fruit clusters that eventually mature into premium grapes for wine production.

At the end of the Shoot Thinning and Suckering operation the shoots left are well spaced 3-4 inches apart on the trellises so as to create an ideal canopy for the development and ripening of the grapes during the summer. It is very important to carry out the Shoot Thinning and Suckering operation before the blossoming of the clusters and early enough in the development cycle to avoid damaging the vine when the shoots removed are too big. This prevents the vine from putting too much effort in breeding shoots and foliage as opposed to focusing its efforts on the grapes.

In our goal to produce only premium and ultra premium grapes we typically leave on the vine some 12 to 15 shoots depending on the strength of the vine. These shoots eventually will develop into canes 3-4 feet long. This sets the base for an ideal leaf area because each cane will develop some 16-25 leaves spaced 2.5 inches apart that constitute the respiratory apparatus of the vine.

Vines after suckering and shoot thinning.

In this way most of the leaves remain well exposed to sunlight and spaced apart enough to facilitate good air circulation which prevents fungal diseases and promotes sound fruit and ripening. We work on having an ideal canopy gap of 40% and cluster exposure of 80% as can be seen from the picture above.

Later in the summer when the canes reach full development we perform hedging on the canes and leaf thinning in order to create an ideal ripening canopy. Each cane will grow one to two fruit clusters setting the stage for production of healthy and flavored grapes that will inject a lot of character in the wine

Part of the Suckering operation is something called shoot positioning. This is a standard practice and part of vine training, where the shoots are arranged on the trellises in a manner that exposes most of the vine’s leaves to sunlight.

Vines well positioned on the trellises after suckering.

At the end of the Shoot thinning and Suckering operation each cane is ready to carry one to two grape clusters and each vine has an ideal setup for blossoming and fruit set.

Clusters in blossom.

Later in the summer hedging and further thinning of leaves and fruit will be carried out to maintain an ideal canopy and mature only the best quality grapes.

In all this operation Joe, who manages the vineyard, pays endless attention to detail. He is guided by his experience and the constant drive to develop premium grapes with only the best flavors and most elegant aromas. You can taste this passion with every sip of Mankas Hills Wines.

We are delighted to let everyone know that in May we presented some of our 2004 wines to the Los Angeles County Fair’s international wine competition and received the following awards:

• The 2004 Amelie received a Bronze Medal within the class of Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot Blends
• The 2004 Contado Mankas (which is not released yet) received a Silver Medal for 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon’s over $13.

Some 3793 wines from 982 wineries were submitted to the competition with wines from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and the United States.

The 2004 Amelie Cabernet Sauvignon - Merlot was released in May. We plan to continue to mature the 2004 Contado Mankas in bottle and release it sometime in the fall.

We’ve all been pretty busy in the past month or so with the vineyard and a web site redesign so we had little or no time to post to wine info.

Our new re-designed site is now live. Although not majorly different in style, it has some improvements in the look and flow of the pages and should be nicer for everyone to navigate in. Some of the style sheets were quite tricky so let us know if you have any problems with the new site in your particular browser.

At the same time we’ve now released our 2004 Amelie Cabernet Sauvignon - Merlot and you can now order it online. It’s quite a little gem of a wine so give it a try.

Amelie
Joyful, Elegant, Gentle

In the Contado, the medieval vineyards and lands ruled by the Counts, it was often the tradition to celebrate a new birth by planting a plot of vines or dedicating to the new born a special wine. This would bid well and endow him/her with symbolic wealth. We thought we would perpetuate this tradition in California by naming a wine after our new born baby girl, Amelie.

Our winemaker has created a particularly smooth wine by combining our 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon with Merlot, to embody the essence of a lively, elegant and joyful woman such as we imagine Amelie will become. We hope this wine, with it’s flavors, aroma and color, will stimulate an air of happiness and joy either when you are moody and alone, celebrating a family event, hosting your friends or just searching for a sliver of optimism during the day.

We have just recently bottled this wine and will release it for your enjoyment in a few months when it is ready.

During the month of January we started to barrel the results of the 2005 crush. Now that the wine can be tasted and different lots and previous vintages can be compared, we thought it would be worth sharing some notes about a great year for California wines. Our 2005 Cabernet grapes were exceptional in all aspects, quality, aromas and flavors and this can be appreciated in the wine we are barreling.

Suisun Valley had a relatively cool growing seasons, two fairly warm months, July and August and an ideal weather in September and October which were mildly warm and dry. The ripening process was slow and we were able to stagger the harvest of our mini-terroirs between October 2nd and October 31st. This created fruit of exceptional quality which developed unique flavors with sugar levels less than previous years and an ideal balance between acidity, sugar and color. Our Cabernet ended up having great elegance and balance.

Here is a more detailed account of the 2005 growing season:

We carefully followed the climax of aromas and flavors and picked the grapes in 7 lots. All the lots averaged 25 Brix with PH ranging from 3.5 to 3.75, but more importantly we picked the lots when the grapes reached their peak of polyphenols.

The lots were harvested in the cool hour of dawn and crushed in the late morning at Catacula Lake Winery which is situated in the shadow of the northern slopes of the Chiles. It is naturally protected against warm mornings.

These are the dates we harvested the 7 lots:

The grapes were gorgeous, tough thick skinned and firm, with a consistent size, juicy flesh, dark brown to blackish seeds, nutty aromas, no herbaceous sniff, and a rich selection of black and red fruit aromas and flavors. Overall great grapes and a great harvest that is now reflected by what goes into the barrels. We hope our barrel program will eventually take this great vintage to its full expression in the glass.

The three charts above confirm why Suisun Valley has a great climate for Cabernet Sauvignon. Not too warm but warm enough to grow grapes to ideal ripeness.