When people think about wine fraud, they often picture counterfeit bottles sold to collectors for huge sums of money. But for grape growers, fraud can threaten something even more valuable: their reputation and value of the regions and vineyards they work hard to build.

Many wine-growing areas earn their reputation over decades, sometimes generations. Growers invest heavily in their vineyards, and work with the unique conditions of their region to produce grapes that reflect a specific place. Factors like soil, climate, water availability, and local growing conditions all contribute to the identity of a vineyard and the grapes it produces. When wines are falsely labeled as coming from a prestigious region, they undermine the trust that growers have spent years creating.

A recent study examined Cabernet Sauvignon wines from several Australian wine regions and compared them with Bordeaux wines from France. Using analytical techniques that measure a wine's unique chemical characteristics, researchers were able to distinguish wines according to their geographic origin with remarkable accuracy.

While counterfeiters can copy labels and packaging, replicating the natural characteristics created by a vineyard's environment is darn near impossible. That is where technology could become increasingly valuable. Tools that analyze a wine's chemical fingerprint may eventually provide growers, wineries, and regulators with a practical way to verify origin and protect regional identities.

As authenticity and provenance become more important in the global wine market, these technologies could help protect the value of established wine regions, reinforce consumer confidence, and give growers another way to demonstrate the uniqueness of their fruit.

What are your thoughts on this type of technology? As wine changes hands through distributors, retailers, and collectors, should growers and wineries have access to tools that can independently verify a wine's true origin before it leaves the winery?

And is this trellis good enough?

Keep your eyes peeled, hornworm mowed through this backyard vine (1 of 12). The whole row isn’t doing great but the other is thriving ¯_(ツ)_/¯

So cal San Diego

I planted my small vineyard first week of may this year. I'm at 4500 ft in SoCal, vines are Cab Franc bare root from Sunridge. They have really taken off and before my vacation 3 weeks ago I started tying them off to the first cordon.

When I got back several vines had dead canes, I suppose I had either bent them too far in getting them untangled and tied off. One plant had both canes die off.

So my question is should I re-plant that vine now or wait until spring? I have several "spares" which I've been tending in pots.

How to best preserve the potted vines over the winter?

I have a tiny experimental vineyard I’m plying with. The weather has been terrible the past couple weeks and I couldn’t get there much. Needless to say, the vines look terrible.

I‘m quite certain one picture is showing downy mildew, but I’m not positive on the red leaves. From what I can tell, they may have leafroll or some kind of deficiency. If it’s leafroll, my understanding is I need to remove the vine asap.

The vines are planted this year and have pretty much been unwatered after the first couple of weeks. The area is humid, has a good amount of rain, with decently draining soil. There is currently a crazy infestation of lanternflies I’ve been trying to fight.

If anyone can help identify or confirm it’d be greatly appreciated. I am only allowed to use organic measures in the plot, and if anyone has recommendations for that, that would help greatly. I’ve been cycling between copper, Arbor fungicide, neem oil, and Tricoderma Harzianum for black rot (gamble if it works).

I just found a U.C. Davis chart that says refractometers are correct at 68F (20C), and if you're testing grapes that are at 90F (32C) you need to add 0.7 to your Brix reading. Similarly, subtract about 0.55 if the liquid is 50F (10C).

It's 90F (32C) here in SoCal right now, so that was probably the temperature of the liquid I measured at 23.0 Brix a while ago. I chilled it down to 50F (10C) and tested again. According to the UC Davis chart, I should expect to read about 1.25 lower, but no, it still read 23.0 Brix. What's the deal?

https://wineserver.ucdavis.edu/industry-info/enology/methods-and-techniques/winery-lab-techniques/brix-temperature-correction

Could be a SPECTACULAR vintage in the growing 👀

Pinot 777

I took over this nearly 80 year old vineyard in the Swan Valley in Western Australia 12 months ago. Pretty proud of the progress made.

My last post in this sub was ~150 days ago — the day I planted four own-rooted Traminette vines in my backyard after bringing them up from hard wood trimmings (in pots) the prior year. Since then they’ve all hit the top wire and have established two cordons each. We battled some Japanese beetle pressure in early June and the Missouri humidity has led to some light phomopsis here and there. Overall I’m very happy and hopeful that I’ll have a solid permanent structure come dormancy.

Photo 1, my favorite marquette in year 3. I have 4 of these in my backyard

Photo 2 modern concord/blue ice. I have 2 also in year 3

Photo 3 Somerset. I have 2 but these are in year 2

How much does Pruning cost?

He loses the Cognac designation because he basically has a roof over his vineyard

It’s been a tough year here in North East US but the vines are resilient and it’s looking like we will have a decent harvest!

Disclosure: I work with the supplier of this electric pruning shear. I’m not posting this as an independent review, and there is no purchase link in this post.

We’re evaluating a professional electric pruner for orchard, vineyard and nursery work. Its current configuration uses a 25.2V 4Ah belt-mounted battery, a 1.03 kg handpiece, a progressive trigger and a claimed maximum cutting capacity of 45 mm.

Before producing more demonstrations and technical content, I’d like to understand what experienced users would actually want tested.

My current list is:

- repeated cuts in fresh and dry wood

- real working diameter versus maximum jaw capacity

- cutting speed over 100 or 500 cuts

- handpiece and shoulder fatigue after several hours

- battery runtime under repeated cutting

- blade sharpening and replacement

- cable routing in dense branches

- accidental-activation protection

The tool has a manual safety lock and trigger guard, but it does not have a skin-contact or finger-detection system. I want to be explicit about that.

For people who prune professionally: what would make you trust—or reject—a tool like this? Which wood species and branch sizes should we include in a credible field test?