Vineyard Management Workshop

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

On February 10 experienced viticulturists and winemakers Mike Lempriere of Perennial Vintners and Betsey Wittick of Bainbridge Vineyards will host a Tilth Producers of Washington hands-on workshop on grape pruning and vineyard management. Wittick, who hold a Masters in Horticulture from Cornell University, began growing grapes and making wines under the tutelage of Bainbridge Island Vineyards founders Gerard and JoAnne Bentryn in 1989, and upon their retirement in 2013 reopened the winery under new cooperative ownership. Wittick gives us an overview of what workshop attendees can expect.

WITTICK: So, what we’re going to start with is a little bit of introduction on the varieties that we grow out here in western Washington, what works, some of the old favorites, some of the new stuff people are experimenting with, a little quick discussion about how do you find the best site for it and how to get started; I’ll be discussing some stuff on early training of wine grapes, and then we’re going to get into the pruning because this is the season in which we’re doing all our winter pruning. But we will be having discussions as part of the day about everything else that happens, because a lot of people think, “well, you prune the grapes and then you pick them”, but there’s this huge part of growing wine grapes called vine tending that happens during the growing season. We’ll discuss things like how do you deal with disease, summer work, trellising, fertility.

Being a hands-on workshop attendees should bring their own gloves, pruners and, as some of the work is close to the ground, kneeling pad. For more information on this and future workshops visit tilthproducers.org.

That’s Washington Ag Today.

I’m Lacy Gray with the Ag Information Network of the West.