Flaherty Wines

We were down in Cauquenes for New Year’s Eve, camping out in our remote little corner of the planet. We’ve made a lot of progress on the vineyard, with new water tanks and a piping system that enables us to water the new plants. We had an unusually wet spring, with rain every three to four weeks, so we didn’t need to start irrigating until around December 1st. Water is trucked in to the fill the tanks, and then it takes a crew of four about two and a half days to water the plants manually with hoses. It’s not the most efficient system, but it will get us through the season until we can get a more permanent water solution in place. At any rate, we’re planning on dry farming the vineyard once the plants are established, so we’ll only have to water for the first few of years.

The vineyard generally looks good. The tempranillo and petite sirah cuttings had a good success rate, and most of the new plants are leafing out nicely. The syrah, on the other hand, largely did not take. The good news is that the nursery has guaranteed the plants, so we’ll get replacement cuttings to replant those sections this winter. The bad news is that we’ve lost a year of growth, and we will incur considerable costs in replanting.