We have budbreak

Here it is at last, a full three weeks after last year. This is budbreak on a classic, #2 pencil-sized spur on a Traminette vine. We didn't have an ultra-mild February and March this year like we did last year, causing our early budbreak and subsequent disaster.

I don't know how I'm going to keep up a viticulture blog after we move to Oregon and I no longer have even a test vineyard to photograph, though I hear there are a few vines in the Willamette Valley. I'll have to do more interviews and spend some time in other folks' vineyards. I'll figure out my blogging niche once I get out there. Until then, I'll keep posting about grapes and wine with an emphasis on the vines.