October through December are a slower pace in the vineyard. After the last grapes were off the vines we hit the road to visit family and friends in Colorado, Minnesota, and Ohio then returned home to start planning the 2019 season.
There’s plenty to do before the next season: we summarize the past season; make observations on what went well and what could be improved next season; make a list of how many vines will need to be replanted (and therefore how many vines we will be digging out); clean, sharpen and oil all the harvest shears; and inventory fertilizer and fungicides.
This is also a good time to tidy up the barn and do maintenance on the equipment. A big shout out to Jon at Alpha One Mechanical who revived our faithful old JD 180 that we use to pull the wagon full of grape buckets during harvest and vacuum/mulch all the leaves that drop at dormancy. He also rescued our Ztrack mower that was overdue for service (oops) and got the gas trimmer and chain saw ship shape for another season.
Ready or not, here comes 2019!