Mowing to Victory
Posted on August 27, 2010
If you want to be one of the first people ever to see what it’s like standing at the end of a horse-mowed row in an Oregon vineyard with a cell-phone video camera, click on the link above. Mark Sougstad, expert teamster, horse logger, farrier, and politician is driving Bea with her one eye and white blaze. He got her to calm down as we mowed along into our third acre. The machine is actually pretty loud. The microphone in my cell phone only picks up a sliver of the sound waves blasting out of the sickle. Still, it’s easier on the ear than a tractor and rotary mower.
Mark let me mow three rows and a lot of the headland. I drove Doc. At one point, he was scared of a pile of wire, and he tried to get away from it. Otherwise, he plodded along with his head tilted a bit, laboring like Boxer the horse in 1984, and I started to get proud of him instead of only pleading with him. That guy was pulling hard, helping out, making wine!
While Doc and Mark and Bea and I were out in the vineyard, we could see that the grapes are coming along nicely. It’s definitely cooler than other years so far. Then again, it looks similar to 2008, and that year turned out wonderfully. We have low natural yields, small berries, and no mildew.
Veraison started last week, and some berries are bright purple already. Harvest is within sight.
When the team brings grapes up to the vineyard, we’ll have two new antiques to help in production: a 1979 Willmes membrane press for whites and a 1650 gallon (that’s size, not year) wooden tank. We’ll be working on our native yeast culture this year, too. Come on out at harvest to see how this stuff works if you get a chance.
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Going Back in Time Takes a While
Posted on August 16, 2010
Finally, after four years of planning and work, I have mowed a row of grapes. Illahe’s friend and teamster Mark Sougstad, who is driving in the picture above, handed me the lines and walked in front of me with his hat held above Doc’s head so I could aim his ears down the middle of the row. The bar of the mower clacks loudly but Doc doesn’t make a sound and the mower bumps around, much more than the tractor. Whereas some of the parts on Marvin Brisk’s mower are made in modern factories, the mower was assembled by hand and could have been done with different parts from the 19th century. I would guess that no other winery is approaching pure sustainability in this way.
As you’ll note from the other picture, Doc and Bea are pulling a wagon in between bales of food. We did have a tractor bale those things, so we still put some diesel into the project, but with only a few acres of hay and about four acres of pasture, a sack of oats and the occasional apple, our team should be able to mow the bottom 30 acres of vineyard next year.
That’s a big ‘should’ since so far we’ve only mowed an acre. I hope to get up to three acres mowed this year and at least the reserve grapes pulled up to the winery by horse.
Mark plans to take Doc and Bea down to California to do some horse logging next month and have them back before harvest. They’ll have more practice and be healthier when next year rolls around. If we can mow 30 acres a few times we may save a few gallons of diesel. I’ll work on the math when quantity matters.
Now, only quality matters. We have never been closer to bringing true Oregon terroir into your bottle. Let us know when you want to come thank winemakers Doc and Bea.
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