Driving through the Wine Country, you may notice some vineyards are void of any vegetation on the vineyard floor, while others have grass and weeds growing between the rows, and still others are a mixture of these styles with rows alternating between cultivated and uncultivated land. You might also notice that beneath some rows the soil is untilled but bare while others show signs of cultivation. Why is that? Vineyard practices vary from grower to grower. The methods we employ are motivated by our desire to enrich the soil and promote a healthy environment for our vines, thereby preserving the land for generations to come. 

Read More...

From December until March each year, our veteran vineyard crew tackles the tedious and time consuming job of pruning our 80,000 vines. While the vines are dormant, the crew removes most of last year’s growth selecting which buds will be saved to grow this year. Every cut answers many questions: Is the vine in balance? How strong is the vine? Is this spur in a good position for the harvester? How did this vine fair last year? With 96 acres, these decisions must be made quickly. Martín Aleman has been with Hafner Vineyard for over two decades. Here he wears a GoPro showing us what it is like to prune just one vine. With eight men in the vineyard, each prunes roughly 10,000 vines. A daunting task but one with great reward. 

Read More...

It’s no secret we are suffering from a severe drought that has been mounting for three years. Luckily, wine grape vineyards are not heavily irrigated in comparison to other crops. We irrigate from mid-July until the end of October and use minimal water, 75% less than most crops.

2012 and 2013 were dry years with less than half of an average year’s rainfall. From April 2013 through January 2014, we received just one inch of rain. A normal year would likely see 18 inches in that time.

Finally, rain arrived! November brought us five inches of rain. Light precipitation continued in December. Then came the forecast of a major storm on December 11, 2014. 

Read More...

Read More...

When it comes to picking grapes, harvesting by machine is the best way in my book. It is incredibly efficient because the grapes go from being on the vine to crushed and into a chilled tank within the span of a half an hour. When grapes are picked by hand, that process takes a minimum of four hours.

If you visit Wine Country during Harvest and happen to take a drive in the middle of the night, you would almost certainly come across a machine harvester at work. Many people wonder why we harvest at night. It’s simple...

Read More...