Winter Update at the Red Trail Vineyard

February 23, 2022

Dear Folks :

Another interesting winter. How well will our vines survive the below zero temperatures has yet to be determined. Hopefully in the next week or so I plan to crawl over the snowbanks into the vineyard and take a few samples.

The plans for another year of our Friday Nite Suppers are now on the website....and Sueann and Gabe will be ready to open the Coffee shop in May. This they will be open on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Then Friday April 29th we will have our first supper.

Also NEW this year is the RV Park, which is scheduled to open on June 1st. With 14 sites.

With last years record harvest we shouldn't run out of wine. Susan and I will do a wine tasting at the winery in Colfax on Sunday.

We expect another busy summer in the vineyard, we have 125 vines to replant King of the North and Sabrevois. We also have many trees to plant around the vineyard and RV Park along with two rows of new plantings.

Hope to see you this summer.
Rodney & Susan

Posted by Rodney Hogen. Posted In : Vineyard News

Snow, Snow, GO AWAY! It's Time To Prune

April 19, 2018

The snow is almost gone in the vineyard and the parking lot is drying up a bit. So, now it's time to think pruning. The last couple of years I started the end on April and finished around the middle of May. With the warmer temperatures my plan is to start working in the vineyard next week.....starting on April 23. I have some netting to take down and wires to tighten before I start to prune and just a day to get ready. What I could use for help this year, is to have someone to take...

Posted by Rodney Hogen. Posted In : Vineyard News

What a Winter!

March 19, 2018

Wine Lovers:

What a Winter ! More Snow and cooler temps, but when I checked the vines last week they all look good.

Pruning season will be here soon and this notice to those who would like to learn the two different methods that we use at the vineyard , your welcome anytime to come out and take a lesson . You can also check out our website and see the video that Mike made of me pruning in the vineyard.

Last years grapes are still at the winery (getting happy) and Randy is in the final st...

Posted by Rodney Hogen.

2017 Year End Wrap Up

November 29, 2017

Greetings,

This was our 15th year for our oldest grapes the King of the North, and it will be the end of the Alpha Rose wine. We will have a small supply to sell in 2018 , but starting with this years crop we will be making Sangria with our Valiant and King of the North varieties. In the vineyard our other varieties continue to produce a little more and this year we missed the frost and hail that wiped out some our grapes last year. We started pruning the middle of April and finished th...

Posted by Rodney Hogen. Posted In : Vineyard News

Summer is ending and the Fall is here already

September 21, 2017

It's been a great summer here at the vineyard.......it's been a little dry but it didn't seem to affect the grapes. Our crop this year is looking good and if we miss the fall thunderstorms with no hail it could exceed last years. We tested all the varieties on Saturday and it showed we should wait another week before we harvest. So our plan is to start picking on Wednesday the 27th and continue through the weekend. According to the tests, it's looks like the Frontenac 200 vines w...

Posted by Rodney Hogen. Posted In : Vineyard News

2016 End Of Year Wrap Up

January 4, 2017

It was a busy year along the Red Trail. With hail, birds,and deer that tried to destroy our crop the weather seemed to be the savior.

We started with an early spring and we finish pruning on May 3rd. We could see that with the nice weather early I thought it was to our benefit to prune as late as possible and on May 14th we had a lite frost, but it didn't seem to hurt the vines. I think with our elevation of 300 ft above the valley and the late pruning our vines remained healthy with th...

Posted by Rodney Hogen. Posted In : Vineyard News

Spring 2016

April 11, 2016

It's hard to believe that 14 years ago I was in search of grape vines to plant. In the spring of 2003 I was trying to chose what site would work best for growing grapes as to the slope of the land and also trees that would give us some wind protection. The area I picked became our north vineyard and as I measured and staked the vineyard area I thought wow ....these 5 acres would be a big garden and I wondered how many times I would be walking up and down each row in the coming ye...

Posted by Rodney Hogen. Posted In : Vineyard News

Year #12 comes to a close...

November 3, 2015

Another year at the vineyard is over.....number 12. Our vineyard continues to change with the removal of some vines and the planting of exciting new varieties. In January we started out with a little pruning in our test area, of our 2-1-17 and I took over 100 cuttings to NDSU to be put in their Greenhouse and rooted. These we planted in the spring on the west side.

Also in January and February, our juice from the 2014 crop was now getting happy at the two wineries. Un...

Posted by Rodney Hogen. Posted In : Vineyard News

Fall Grape Harvest Coming Soon!

September 9, 2015

It's September already! What a busy year it has been. The grapes decided to bud a little earlier than normal and almost to early, as we had a late may frost, but they survived and throughout the summer it looked like our production would hit a new high. But on August 14th we got hit by a hail storm that took out about 40% of the crop. We are still looking forward to a good crop but it could have been better. Oh well Maybe next year ! Yesterday I tested the ...

Posted by Rodney Hogen. Posted In : Vineyard News

Latest News from the Vineyard

April 27, 2015

Looks like Spring has arrived and we are currently half done with the pruning. I have the North Vineyard finished and will start of the South Vineyard today. The south vineyard are a bit younger and smaller plants and is done on a VSP Trellis so it will go a lot faster. All the varieties are looking good after our mild winter and the new Petite Pearls that were planted last year are looking good. The Petite Pearl takes longer to get established and to produce fruit, I'...
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Posted by Rodney. Posted In : Vineyard News

Winter Update at the Red Trail Vineyard

Snow, Snow, GO AWAY! It's Time To Prune

What a Winter!

2017 Year End Wrap Up

Summer is ending and the Fall is here already

2016 End Of Year Wrap Up

Spring 2016

Year #12 comes to a close...

Fall Grape Harvest Coming Soon!

Latest News from the Vineyard

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