Writer: Wes Hagen

Know what to look for to help identify problems in your home vineyard before they turn catastrophic.

Nothing is worse than watching your grapes go to the birds. Fight back!

Grape growing questions answered!

Here is one truism of farming: Being prepared is always preferable to trying to fix an unexpected problem. Understanding the water needs of a grapevine is an important step to using as

Asking a winemaker if they make rosé should be like asking a winemaker if they drink beer. The two beverages, pink wine and a tasty lager, belong in any cellar and in

Four Pinot Noir pros share their best advice for crafting the “heartbreak grape.”

The heat of the day is not necessarily the time to harvest your ripe grapes. A night harvest allows you to bring the fruit in when it’s cool, which will lower your VA, plus other benefits.

Don’t neglect your vineyard just because the grapes have been harvested. Here’s the cleanup that needs to take place.

Four pro “Rhône Ranger” winemakers discuss making Rhône-style wines and decisions that work best on the small-scale.

In January, Wes Hagen joined Los Angeles archivist Michael Holland to prune the historic 200-year-old Avila Adobe vine and explore the history of the city’s winemaking. The vine is located inside the courtyard of the oldest building in Los Angeles.

Explore the three most common methods of irrigating a home vineyard, some of the more common myths surrounding watering grapevines, and if you need to even irrigate in the first place.

Balance in a vineyard is defined as a vine that has enough leaves to ripen a small to moderate crop load. To achieve that goal, a good vineyard manager needs to pay close attention to what’s happening among the vines this time of year.

You may have noticed the “orange wines” that have been popping up on trendy wine lists lately. These are white wines that are purposely exposed to skin contact and oxidized to produce wines that are quite orange in appearance.

Produced from just a mother vine, grapevine clones are intended to assure growers the grapes produced will have a predictable characteristic. But is it really that simple? Wes Hagen weighs in on why clone selection may not be as important as varietal selection.

The essential tools any home viticulturist will need to stay on top of their backyard vineyard.

  We winemakers are self-reliant. We like to be in charge of our own affairs and it can seem like a defeat to be forced to ask for help — whether it

Growing grapes on a farm isn’t easy. Even with tractors, spray rigs and workers to help, sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all the issues that arise during the growing season. Just when

Back in 1995 I took my first viticulture course. I had returned from a short stint as a college instructor in Northern Minnesota, which proved a bit too cold for a third

(Another) Year in the Vineyard Week #32 (The Last Weekly Blog for 201) October 15-21, 2010 Wrapping it Up and Looking to the Skies For a harvest that began so quickly behind

(Another) Year in the Vineyard, Week #30 The Beginning of the End, and One Hell of a Scare (all photos this week courtesy of www.bottlebranding.com and Jeremy Ball..thanks Jerms! Mouse over photos

(Another) Year in the Vineyard Week #30: October 1-8, 2010 Zen and the Challenging Vintage Harvest is an excellent metaphor for life.  Like any difficult cycle in our lives, harvest usually begins

(Another) Year in the Vineyard Week #29: 9/25-9/30, 2010 From Mellow to Manic in a Single Heat Wave And Why English Majors Make Bad Electricians As you might have guessed, the blogs

(Another) Year in the Vineyard With Wes Hagen, Clos Pepe Vineyard Week #28:  September 17-23, 2010 The Heat Arrives, Harvest Begins with Old Friends, New Friends Well it was bound to happen. 

(Another) Year in the Vineyard Blog With Wes Hagen, VM/WM Clos Pepe Week #27: September 10-16 Loving the Weather, Testing the Grapes, Time for a Cocktail! To be honest, I can’t remember

(Another) Year in the Vineyard, Week #26:  September 3-9, 2010 The Winery is Ready, The Grapes are Not! Welcome, once again to another episode of ‘Year in the Vineyard’.  Well, we’re counting