A new member to my vineyard

I made interesting order to my vineyard two days ago. When snow melts I´ll plant ten sprouts of Pinot Noir on my yard. I was quite amazed when I found out that Pinot Noir cuold survive in Finland. To be precise my Pinot will be Pinot Noir Precoce. (Precoce means early ripining.)

Pinot Noir is first red in my yard. At the beginning I decided to make white wines, but more you eat, hungrier you get. I trying to get 100m2 more room for my yard too so there wuold be room for aprx. 60-70 vines totally.

One bottle of wine needs 1,4 - 1,7 kg of grapes. On full grown vine can produce 15-20 kg on grapes. So in a good year (some year in the future), I cuold produce aprx. 800 bottles of wine from my grapes. For now I´m happy if I get any grapes.

Because this is first year when vines may produce grapes, I´ll make so tests. I´ll use black background and stones to heat the area. Speacially stones are used a lot because they can hold the day heat and release it on cold nights to the area.

My biggest concern is the low-lying ground where frost may appear on spring nights. I may have to cover vines every evening when new sprouts appear. But there is still almoust half a meter of snow on the yard so no hurry yet. The Easter holidays are coming so it is time for good red wine and Easter delicacies.

Marathon du Medoc

When you wait for summer eagerly, you might do some decisions just to get to the feeling. My wife suggested last autumn that we cuold try the Marathon du Medoc some day. Marathon du Medoc a.k.a. The Wine Marathon is located in Bordeaux, France. Marathon is famous about funny costumed runners and of course wine which runners also drink during the run.

So now we are planning to run 2010 Marathon du Medoc. I have studied the Bordeaux area already in case I drop in to some vineyards for souveniers and growing tips. Yesterday when we had our 4th anniversary, we tasted some Medoc Bordeaux. Château Sénilhac 2005 (Cabernet Savignon 55%, Merlot 40%, Cabernet Franc 5%) was beautifully aged wine. I tasted some blueberry in it even Alko´s pages mentioned currant. Well it is tasters opinion. Wine dry mouth on first taste, but the length of taste is long and pleasent. Wine has some sediment so if you buy it remember to decant it carefully.

My summer schedule is starting to fill fast. I need to practice for Marathon (and now I mean running not drinking) and part of my daily cycling to work will change to running. I won´t make any time goal for marathon but I wan´t to RUN it from start to goal. Marathon is on September so I´ll have good time to get on shape.