We have had the pleasure of working with Bob Highfill quite a few times in the past for his column From the Vine in the Stockton Record. We are thrilled to continue his exploration of our Old Vine Zinfandel in this series examining the many phases of vineyard growth leading up to harvest. This second installment takes you to our 116 year old Lizzy James Vineyard in the Mokelumne River sub AVA, located right up the road from our winery and tasting room (read the first installment here).
In the venerable Lizzy James Vineyard, Kyle Lerner forms a circle with the fingers on his right hand, holds it up and moves it about.
He’s illustrating the annual goal of the grower. The circle represents the target Lerner tries to hit each year. The challenge is the target moves throughout the growing season based on the whim of Mother Nature.
It’s tough to hit a moving target.
“It’s like a missile until we hit it and capture the best of the best we can get out here,” said Lerner, owner of Mettler & Son and Harney Lane Winery & Vineyards in Lodi. “It’s not like producing a plastic widget.”
On a cool, slightly overcast morning, Lerner and I are standing in the Lizzy James Vineyard off North Alpine Road in Lodi. As his dog Charlie darts between the rows of gnarly head-pruned Zinfandel vines, some planted as far back as 1904, Lerner examined the leaves, canes and miniature clusters that have formed.
It’s about a month past bud break, when new life began to show on the pruned vines. In January, Lerner demonstrated and explained the importance of the pruning process in the first installment of an ongoing From the Vine series examining important stages in the life cycle of the Lizzy James Vineyard. On this day in late April, we are together again talking about another important stage, shoot thinning.
The unique qualities of complexity and concentration from the fruit on this 20-acre parcel that Kyle and his late father-in-law George Mettler rescued in 2000 was the impetus behind Harney Lane Winery opening in 2008. The elegant, voluminous and zesty Harney Lane Lizzy James Vineyard Old Vine Zinfandel is the winery’s flagship and a standout expression from Lodi’s signature grape.
To maintain the consistent excellence of past vintages, Lerner has a new target to hit this year.
“This year we’re running with about 60% of average rainfall,” Lerner said. “Last year was a gully washer, so we’re going to be farming totally different this year than we had to last year. But we still have this target there that I’m trying to hit.”
Lerner and his crew will go through each vine and pull off excess leaves, shoulders on infant clusters and other growth that would sap the vine’s precious energy as the growing season continues. This process, called shoot thinning, balances the vine so the grapes ripen to their optimal point.
“Now that we’re warming up, they are really starting to take off,” Lerner said. “Things are going to happen quickly.”
Currently, the vines are in what Lerner calls stretching mode — the canes are elongating and stretching exponentially. Lerner said the canes in his Primitivo vineyard next to Harney Lane Winery on Harney Lane in Lodi grew two to four inches per day a few years ago.
“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “You really don’t think about it until you come in one day and you go in a few days later and it’s like, whoa, what just happened? It’s a pretty cool piece of nature.”
Lerner already can tell that 2020 could be a fruitful year, if Mother Nature behaves.
“What we have to do now is understand how much energy this vine has,” said Lerner, emphasizing that each vine in the Lizzy James Vineyard is different and has to be treated accordingly. “It’s like our bodies. Not everyone can run a marathon unless they’re trained to do it.”
If unchecked, the vine would grow and grow and wouldn’t have enough energy to ripen all of its fruit and develop its canopy to the fullest. One of the few ways Lerner can manipulate nature is to help put the vine in balance by removing the growth that would sap its energy.
Lerner pays much more attention to the vines that were planted in the early 1900s. He aggressively thins these vines because they don’t have much energy. Lerner knows the fruit from these ancient vines is special and to coax their full potential, he must manage them differently than those vines that were planted in, say, the 1950s.
“It’s one of our older saints,” he said. “We still want the fruit to come off, but I’m going to be very selective in how I manage that. In this case, I’m going to leave two shoots, but I’m going to take this cluster and pop that right off.
I want to guarantee that it’s geared for success
“I want to guarantee that it’s geared for success.”
In July, the next installment in the From the Vine series will examine veraison, when Lizzy James’s berries mature from green to red, an especially colorful point in the vine’s lifecycle.
Grab some of our 2017 Lizzy James Old Vine Zinfandel today! Also available is our Lizzy James Port!
