Social Media

In my opinion, there is an under-utilization of the internet in these parts.  That's unfortunate, because there are so many free things that help notify people about the services you provide.  There are so many ways to still feel connected in a world of global media & giant grocers & mega-discount stores.  Here at Grimes Mill Winery, we have a small annual production of hand-crafted wines.  We're Lexington's newest boutique winery, and we have always relied heavily on word-of-mouth to spread the quality of our wine and the quality of our staff.

That is, until now.  Though I'm new to winemaking, I'm a veteran in social media.  I initiated the co-owners, Dr. Philip & Lois DeSimone, with this blog, but I am attempting to take it so much further.  Hopefully all of it will be successful in spreading the gospel of our local Kentucky wine a little further.  If not, it will still be fun.  Check out all the ways you can interact with us here at Grimes Mill Winery on a daily basis.

Start off with the Grimes Mill Winery website.  Here you can read all about our history and our current wines & events, as well as email us.

We also have a Facebook page.  Your 'Like' means the world to us.

We've recently hopped on foursquare.  You'll see a window cling at the entrance to the Tasting Room reminding you to check-in and challenge our regular customers for the top spot of Grimes Mill Winery's Mayor.  Unfamiliar with foursquare?  Just ask.  Or you can check it out here.

I've been posting all of the blog posts on our Google+ page.  We'd love to be part of your circle.

I, personally, have been tweeting quick notes from the vineyard on Twitter.  This is probably the quickest way to see what I'm doing on a regular basis.

Finally, we'd love to see what you think about us on yelp.

Overwhelming?  Maybe a little, but I truly believe that you'll enjoy your experience at Grimes Mill Winery (and businesses, in general) if you allow social media to help you interact with your friends to get recommendations or to meet up.  If you ever wonder about some step of the wine process, you could always just ask via one of these media.  We love to educate.  I'm learning these things along the way, too.

And, in the end, we're hoping that you'll come visit us in the winery to interact with us the ol' fashion way, face-to-face.  Until then...

In Vino Veritas,
The Winemaker's Apprentice

Planting Baby Vines

I've always wondered about the process of planting new vines.  One day, I hope to have my own vineyard, but I had no clue how grafted vines even arrive, or where you can buy them.  That's why I thoroughly enjoyed the process of planting new vines to replace those that didn't quite make it through the past year.  We started immediately after we finished pruning.

This is how they look in the box.

We order most of our vines from a company in New York.  They arrive in a long box, wrapped in shreds of moist newspaper and plastic wrap.  They're bound in groups of 25 and labeled with the varietal.

The same baby vines out of the box.

We take the young, grafted vines out of  the box and place them into a bucket of water.  You'd be surprised to see how much water they drink up in the short amount of time before each one is planted.

New plants in a bucket of water. It gets murky.

Then, the real back-breaking work takes place.  We dug a fairly large hole for each plant.  We dug it with shovels, no fancy tools, and we filled the hole back in with a new vine and the just-removed soil.

Only the slightest bit of the plant sticks out.

After packing the soil back over the plant, you can see just the slightest hint of the baby vine sticking out of the mound.  (See if you can find it above.)  Then, you start over.  In about 3 years, these young plants will have matured enough to provide us wine-quality grapes.  I'm excited to watch the whole process, though it will happen very slowly.

A new row of new vines.

If you swing by the winery, you can see the process of adding entire rows of new vines to our vineyard.  It's a ton of work, but it is exciting to know that we'll have more grapes to tinker with in the future.

See you at the winery,
The Winemaker's Apprentice

Crown Gall

Sometimes, you have to battle nature to make wine.

Pruning is finally complete.  My hands couldn't be happier.  Now we are moving on to planting baby grapevines where previous grapevines didn't quite survive this last year.  It wasn't a huge percentage of the vines, but more often than not, a dead vine was killed by crown gall.  I slowly became better and better at recognizing the symptoms of this disease.

Crown gall is caused by a bacterial infection, usually located near the base of the vine.  A dark, soil-y substance fills in between the root and outer surface of the vine, slowly choking it.  In the picture below, the dark substance pushes out the 'bark' of the vine to make the base look big and thick, but once you break it open, you can see that the actual root (the rust-colored core) of the vine is only a small portion of the mass.  We typically inspect all dead vines to try and determine the cause of death, if nothing else just to keep a mental tally.

Though not deadly to the grapevines, birds can be devastating to the fruit.  They love sweet grapes, just like we do, and they can be relentless in eating an entire crop.  No matter what people have done around here, nothing really deters these hungry, winged grape-devourers.  That's why it's so difficult when we run across a nest while we're pruning.

We actually left these nests.  They were just too cute to destroy, even if it means that we may just be encouraging the very pests that we'd like to deter.  If nothing else, they'd be decorative eggs for the upcoming Easter weekend.

Aside from that, you can find all kinds of spiders, snakes, bugs, fungus, etc. throughout the vineyard.  Some are beneficial, while others may be the opposite.  It comes with the territory when you're playing with nature.

I can't put into words how amazed I am by the progress of some of the vines since I pruned them just a couple of weeks ago.  It's like I'm watching my children grow.  The bright green leaves from the Cab Franc and the distinctive reddish color of the Moscato leaves are easy to see from the tasting room.  Though I can't put it into words, I'd be happy to show you if you swing by the tasting room.

In Vino Veritas,
The Winemaker's Apprentice