deVine Blog

deVine Blog

Click on a date or scroll down to view previous entries.

Dec. 2009
Nov. 2009
Sept. 2009
July 2009
May 2009
April 2009

deVine Blog entries from 2006
deVine Blog entries from 2007
deVine Blog entries from 2008

Dec. 2009

“I've seen all good people turn their heads each day. So satisfied, I'm
on my way.”
-Yes
December, 2009

Wow! The year is finally over. Come to think of it, so is the decade. No wonder I'm so tired! The tasting room is closed from December 23rd
until Friday, March 5th 2010. We have a couple months to step back
and evaluate the complexities of the universe and where we belong in
the time space continuum. Plus, we can sleep in and watch Seinfeld
reruns. So that's a good thing. “To sleep, perchance to dream.”
The 2009 vintage is in tanks and barrels and can benefit from a little
benign neglect for a while. We can now look back on the year and
realize how lucky we are. We cannot thank each of you enough for
making our vineyard a success. We have such a great time up here
meeting people from all corners of the world and discussing the beauty
of the countryside that we are blessed to be taking care of. Viva la Vista!
In the spirit of conservation that is all the conversation lately, I have
decide to recycle my Christmas message from a few years ago. After all, old is the new new! Remember, keep your friends close, and your corkscrew closer. Enjoy!

A VERY KARMIC CHRISTMAS

DEPRESSED WITH MY LIFE, FEELING WORN OUT AND DIRTY.
THEN I SAW ON OPRAH THAT 50 IS THE NEW 30!

MY LIFE ISN’T FINISHED I NOW CLEARLY SEE.
THIS GREAT NEW OUTLOOK IS A WHOLE NEW ME.

NEED A STIMULUS DO-OVER WITH BILLS OVERDUE?
POOR’S THE NEW RICH, OR SO I TELL SUE.

HOW CAN BANKS BE IN DEBT? IM NOT PAYING MINE BACK.
I TOLD MY BANKER, “RED’S THE NEW BLACK!”

WAR, DISEASE, GLOBE TOO WARM?
RELAX, APOCALYPSE IS NOW THE NEW NORM.

NOT REAL HAPPY WITH THE SHAPE YOU’RE IN?
I’VE DECIDED FROM NOW ON THAT PLUMP’S THE NEW THIN.

HEALTH CARE CONCERNS ARE ALL OVER RATED.
HAVE A BIG GLASS OF WINE, IT’S THE NEW “MEDICATED.”

POLITICIANS ARE CROOKED, CELEBRITIES LAME.
O.K. THERE ARE SOME THINGS STAYING THE SAME.

LOVE AND ROMANCE ARE ALL IN OUR HEAD.
29 YEARS IS THE NEW NEWLYWED.

STILL GROOVIN’ ALONG, WE’VE GOT PLENTY WINE
AND I HEAR THAT ’0 TEN IS THE NEW ’09.

SO HOLIDAY GREETINGS FROM HERE IN COLOMA.
THE TOWN FAST BECOMING THE NEW SONOMA!

CHEERS TO THE BEST CHRISTMAS (and decade) YET!

JOE AND SUE
along with kelly & keith & even jake too

Nov. 2009

And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows.
-and so it goes / Billy Joel

November, 2009

We finally picked the syrah along the driveway last Saturday. It was
cold and windy and took all day, but finally the last grapes of the
season are picked. The harvest that started with cherries in July is,
thankfully, finished. This is the first crop off the vineyard that we
planted in 2007. The grapes were gorgeous in so many ways.
Photogenic. You couldn’t help but notice how many people were taking
pictures of themselves in the vineyard for the last several weeks as the
colors got more vivid. We think the wine will be pretty special when all
is said and done.

There is still plenty to accomplish before we rest. The winemaking part
gets all the focus for the next couple weeks. There are grapes to be
smashed, yeast to be added, tanks to be filled and drained, and filled
again. We have tractors and sprayers to get cleaned up and put
away. Most of the workers are heading south for the winter. Smart
people. We have Kelly’s birthday to celebrate in Denver and the next
thing you know it will be Thanksgiving. The winery is open until
December 23, what we call Christmas Eve’s Eve. But we’re not there
yet.

Many of our grape varieties picked out a little lighter than expected,
which turned out to be a huge blessing. We never really had a hot
stretch through summer to make up for the late spring. Everything
harvested about ten days later than last year, but it finally ripened
nicely and the cold nights really seemed to make the color pop in the
reds. If the vines had many more pounds of fruit on them, they may
never have ripened as well as they did. So maybe nature had a plan
all along. We can act like we were never worried and we are simpatico
with the gods. What good does it do to act otherwise?

I have a feeling 2009 will be our best vintage yet.

Sept. 2009

“Your everlasting summer, you can see it fading fast.”
- Reelin' In The Years, Steely Dan

Early September

Here we are now, in the first week of the ninth month of the last year
of the first decade of the second millennium. How time flies. Remember
that drought we were having in July? Well, it ended in August with a
nice two inch rain around my birthday, August 8th. It almost always
rains on my birthday and I like it that way. I always looked forward to
it as a kid because that was the only way you were going to get out of
working on the farm. That and maybe a Sunday birthday, which you
could only count on once every seven years or so. Nope, rain on
August 8th was much more predictable, and I always went to sleep on
August 7th praying for rain. And, often as not, my prayers were
answered. Anyway, this year's birthday rainfall really saved the peach
crop, which was looking like it was going to be small and stunted from a
month or so of little to no rain. There must be a lot of the rest of you
who have birthdays later in the month, because the last week of
August it wouldn't quit raining! We had to pick day after day in the
rain, but somehow we got through it with a really nice crop and really
nice quality. Amazing. And happy birthday to you all!

Two crops down, and a grape crop to go. The grapes in the picture are
those same Syrah from along the driveway at the winery. Most of the
grapes have turned color and are enjoying what looks like at least week
of sunny and warm and thankfully...no rain. The first grapes won't be
picked for probably three weeks yet. Good. We are behind on mowing,
hedging, spraying and weeding and, more importantly, taking some time
off. Yup, I took my first day off since Easter and went to Chicago to
see Steely Dan. Wow! What a great show. What a great band. I
needed that. As I sat in the beautiful Chicago Theater I was
thinking of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. You know, how the basic
needs have to be met first; food, shelter, clothing, etc. Then, you can
move up the ladder to other things. I think music must be one of the
very next things. Everyone at the show appeared to have food, shelter
and clothing, so it supports my theory. If not, they were buying it in
the lobby. I think wine must be one of those very next necessities as
well. Come to think of it, some of the people at the theater were
drinking wine too. That practically proves my theory. We'll call it “Joe's
hierarchy of things after you get all that other stuff out of the way”
theory. Yup, Steely Dan and wine. Two of the basic food groups of
the soul. Maybe I'll take another day off in a month or two. For now,
I've got to focus on the necessities.

“I heard it was you, talkin' 'bout a world where all is free. It just
couldn't be and only a fool would say that.”
Only A Fool Would Say That -- Steely Dan.

July 2009

Late July
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money's gone
Once in a Lifetime....Talking Heads

Middle of summer. We've harvested cherries and are in between crops.
Peaches will start in a week or so and will dominate the month of
August. Time to get caught up on all the grape jobs. Spraying, weed
control, leaf pulling, thinning, shoot positioning. All the little things that
will get left behind if we don't get them done now. The picture shows
grapes from our new Syrah block you see coming up our driveway. All
the grapes are the same color now, but within the next couple of weeks
you will start to notice the red varieties taking on their color a little at
a time. This block looked tough at the start of spring. With the cold
winter we had you can really tell which varieties are borderline too
tender for Michigan and right now I'd say Syrah as at or near the top of
that list. There are a lot of vines to replace and rework, but for the
most part the vineyard looks surprisingly healthy. You have to be
somewhat nuts to plant these varieties in our climate, so once again I
find myself more than qualified for the job.

We have been extremely dry for the last three weeks. I have people
out watering new vines that we just planted this spring. Once you
spend several hundred dollars watering you can pretty much guarantee
that it will rain. A lot. It's a game we play with Mother Nature and it is
soooo much fun. Dry is actually a good thing in Michigan. In a dry year
you lose sleep, in a wet year you lose money. Everyone is complaining
about the lack of real heat this summer. Everyone but me. First of all,
it doesn't take long for 90 degree days to get real old, real fast.
Second of all, it's another game we play with Mother Nature and I know
better than to wish for the extreme of anything. Be careful what you
wish for. You haven't lived until you've picked peaches several days in
a row in 90 degree heat.

Can you believe August is almost here? Of course, that means I have a
birthday to celebrate and we can finally stop talking about Susie turning
50 last month. Fifty being the new thirty, I will be middlin' thirties in a
couple weeks and that usually takes several days if not the whole
month to honor in an adequate fashion. Crosby, Stills and Nash next
week in South Bend, and then ending the month seeing Steely Dan in
Chicago. Yes, I am reeling in the years. Stowing away the wine.
Isn't that how the song goes?

May 2009

Hello, I've been waiting here for you...everlong.
- The Foo Fighters

Early June,

What a weird spring! We can't seem to get two days without rain. It's
been pretty cool for the most part, but we really didn't have any killer
freezes. Those are baby grapes in the picture which finally decided
they had better come out or we'll never get them picked before
Thanksgiving! Now all I have to do is fuss over them for the next three
to four months; pick and squeeze them; fuss over the wine for another
three to four months; and then we've got something to drink. Man!
Makes me tired and thirsty just thinking about it. We've got a few
stretches of vineyards where the grapes are few and far between, but
considering we had 15 below temperatures in January it is something of
a miracle the vines look so good. I don't think a miracle every once in a
while is too much to ask for.

Tasting room traffic is picking up, as is the temperature of Lake
Michigan. We are getting ready for the big Weko Beach wine event in
Bridgman in a couple weeks; Saturday, June 20th from 1 to 10 p.m. If
you want to see all the area wineries in one convenient, beautiful, and
cool setting you really need to be there. Music, food, and of course
spectacular wines are the course for the day. The week after that is
Sue's birthday (she's worried about her age, but I tell her she's really
not that old in Celsius). The week after that is the Fourth of July. The
week after that we start cherry harvest, then comes peach season.
Summer hasn't even started and it's half gone! I'm sure eventually we
will be complaining about it being hot and dry (we farmers are a fickle
bunch). But right now that seems like a good problem to have.

Saw Roger McGuinn and John Sebastian at the Dogwood Festival in
Dowagiac last month in a small, intimate school auditorium. Wow, was
that cool! If you have to ask who they are you are much too young in
Celsius or Fahrenheit, and I feel sorry for you. We're going to see
Crosby, Stills and Nash in August...so I've got that going for me.
There's great music every summer weekend somewhere around here just
waiting for an audience. I have a feeling this is going to be the best
summer yet! But in the mean time, I guess I've got some grapes to take
care of. This “work thing” is cutting into my social life.

April 2009

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the son
and I say it's all right
- The Beatles
April, 2009

It's late April, the last year of the first decade of the second millennium. I guess it's time to get back to work on the farm, but the weather keeps
disagreeing with me. The forecast for this spring has been “mostly
winter, with occasional sun.” We had the coldest winter in the last ten
years, with temperatures reaching 15 below zero one morning in January. That's cold enough to kill a lot of the buds on several of the
grape varieties. Surprisingly, it looks like there are still enough good
buds to make a crop, providing we can survive spring, the next hurdle.

A cool, late spring is actually good news for the vines and trees on the
farm. The later buds break the less chance they will get burned off with
a morning freeze. When it is cold in the morning we work on the wine
that is still in the tanks and barrels. When it's nice, we work outside.
We planted several new peach orchards this week, a few hundred cherry
trees, and started getting ground ready to plant grapes in a few weeks.
There's fertilizer to put on and weed spraying to do. The next warm
spell will cause the cherries to bloom. Always a pretty time of year.
Once cherries bloom it's sixty days to harvest and the clock is ticking.
But today it's cool and rainy and this sap is moving slow. I have to
picture the vines full of fruit. I have to remind myself that 2009 will be
the best year yet. A year of great change. We broke ground this week
for a new wine making building just off the parking lot. Our son Keith
turned 25 this week and also decided maybe he'd give up the corporate
world for a spin at this wine and farming thing we're doing. How cool is
that! The future's so bright, I've gotta wear shades.

Karma Vista Vineyards & Winery
6991 Ryno Road
Coloma, MI 49038

Hours
Closed Tuesday
Open: 11 - 5 Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday and Saturday, 12 - 5 Sunday

Phone: 1-269-468-WINE (9463)
Email: info@karmavista.com

Last Edited: 03/05/10
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