Natural wine life cycle

Grape clusters begin to form on second year wood.

In viticulture, veraison is the onset of the ripening of the grapes. The official definition of veraison is "change of color of the grape berries".

Our vineyard rows are north south oriented for maximum light penetration.

Our farm and vineyards lay two miles west of Kuna Butte with heavy amounts of basalt rock.

Nestled between the Boise Front and the Owyhee Mountains is the broad valley of the western Snake River Plain. While geologists debate the details of its origin, evidence indicates that the Plain began as a rift about 12 million years ago. A rift is a large valley bordered by faults, or fractures in the earth’s crust. The earth’s crust was pulled apart and became thin, much like the stretching of taffy, and the mountains rose along the fault lines bordering the valley. The Boise Front and the Owyhee Mountains were uplifted along these faults for 3 million years and had probably reached much of their current elevation by 9 million years ago.

We have grown a variety of grapes to determine which ones are best suited for our climate and growing zone. We are just between USDA growing zones 6A and 6B. Our farm sits at an elevation of 2660 feet above sea level.

Harvest time is chosen by a combination of sweetness of the grapes and weather. Sugar levels are determined with a refractometer to measure levels of Brix. Pronounced “bricks,” it’s an estimation of the sugar content of grape juice or fermenting wine. It originated in the 18th century when German scientist Adolf Ferdinand Wenceslaus Brix created a set of standards to accurately measure the sugar (or sucrose) content of liquids. 

Schuyler is the primary grape in our driveway blend.

​Schuyler is a blue-skinned hybrid wine and table grape created in 1947 by crossing the red Vitis vinifera Zinfandel with the Vitis labrusca hybrid Ontario. It is the parent, with the hybrid Seyval, of Cayuga White and its sister Horizon. It was created, along with many hybrid grapes designed for the climate of New York's Finger Lakes, at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station located at Cornell University in Geneva, New York. It is very cold tolerant, down to -29 °C / -20 °F.

Once the juice is pressed from the must, it is placed in the compost pile for future soil nutrients.