Top Grafting
In 2001 we top grafted a portion of Dollahide Ranch’s parcel 20 to Malbec and we’ve been delighted with the results, so we’re starting to do more. Top grafting lets us change the varietal that’s grown in a parcel without doing a complete vineyard replant. We take off the top of the vines about eighteen inches from the soil, then graft on the new grape variety at that spot. Since the diameters of the mature vine and the graft are significantly different, it takes a highly experienced technician to do the procedure. Honestly, there are people in the wine industry that specialize in top grafting for a living. They are in high demand. Topgrafted vines are typically cane pruned, as it’s difficult make cordons from the graft.

Why top graft? One reason is to apply accumulated knowledge about one’s own vineyard. Over time, we learn what works and what doesn’t work in certain parts of each vineyard, and we may find that our initial plan wasn’t as good as it could have been. For example, there are areas of Dollarhide with very rich soils and other areas with poorer soils. We had planted Merlot in some of the low–nutrient soils, but found that we would have made a better choice to plant Sauvignon Blanc which absolutely loves Dollarhide regardless of what parcel it’s in. We have done some trials of top grafting Merlot to Sauvignon Blanc and have had great results. That Sauvignon Blanc at Dollarhide…happy as a duck in water. Another reason we top graft relates to demand for our wines. The increase in demand for Élu has prompted us to plant Malbec to give us all five Bordeaux Red varieties to include in that wine.

Pomace Composting
During harvest, the winery creates a lot of compostable material in the form of stems, grape seeds, and grape skins (we call this mixture pomace). Historically, we had sold this material to a composting company, but starting with the 2002 vintage, we’re keeping our goodies in-house. We are now trucking our pomace from the winery to the vineyards for composting and eventual fertilization of nutrient-poor soils.

We truck the pomace to an area of fallow ground and let nature do its work. It’s really amazing to see how hot these piles of spent grape material get when they’re naturally breaking down. The interiors of the pilesm get become almost too hot to touch.Top Grafting (probably save this for another month)