Showing category "Vineyard News" (Show all posts)

Winter Update at the Red Trail Vineyard

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Wednesday, February 23, 2022, In : Vineyard News 
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 fi...

Continue reading ...
 

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

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Thursday, April 19, 2018, In : Vineyard News 

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...


Continue reading ...
 

2017 Year End Wrap Up

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Wednesday, November 29, 2017, In : Vineyard News 
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...

Continue reading ...
 

Summer is ending and the Fall is here already

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Thursday, September 21, 2017, In : Vineyard News 

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...


Continue reading ...
 

2016 End Of Year Wrap Up

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Wednesday, January 4, 2017, In : Vineyard News 
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...

Continue reading ...
 

Spring 2016

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Monday, April 11, 2016, In : Vineyard News 
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...

Continue reading ...
 

Year #12 comes to a close...

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Tuesday, November 3, 2015, In : Vineyard News 
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...

Continue reading ...
 

Fall Grape Harvest Coming Soon!

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Wednesday, September 9, 2015, In : Vineyard News 
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 ...

Continue reading ...
 

Latest News from the Vineyard

Posted by Rodney on Monday, April 27, 2015, In : Vineyard News 
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'...
Continue reading ...
 

Wrap Up

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Thursday, November 20, 2014, In : Vineyard News 
It was another busy year at the vineyard !        Thank you to the many that came and enjoyed our Friday Nite Suppers and we plan to continue and hopefully do a few more next year.    One of the High-lites of the year was our wine event introducing some of the new wines the Petite Pearl,  2-1-17, and 1-1-34.   The last 2 are experimental and don't have a name but all 3 have a great potential of becoming a variety to grow in the future.  We have over 200 Petite Pearls in the ground and ...

Continue reading ...
 

Grape Harvest starting Sept. 27th

Posted by Rodney on Monday, September 22, 2014, In : Vineyard News 
It's that time of the year for harvest.   Even though our production will be down we consider ourselves lucky because many vineyards lost most of their grapes.    Saturday the 27th we will begin to pick the white grapes and de-stem, crush and press.    We will also harvest some of the reds.  We will be serving beef stew for noon lunch.    So please let me know if you can attend by calling my cell   701-238-3337. 

Saturday is also the day when we host the Vine & Dine event at the vineya...

Continue reading ...
 

July 2014 Vineyard News

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Wednesday, July 23, 2014, In : Vineyard News 
On my last trip through the vineyard, it looks like our production this year will be down.    All of our vines survived the winter except the Louise Swenson which died back to the ground and we plan to pull all of these to plant something new.    The other vines struggled with the cold and later spring, setting the flowering back about a week and when they flowered we had a rainy period that affected the pollination as the clusters have more shot berrys.     Our new plantings of Petite ...

Continue reading ...
 

Vineyard News - May 2014

Posted by Rod Hogen on Tuesday, May 13, 2014, In : Vineyard News 
Greetings:)

Finally we finished pruning the last of our 2,500 vines on Saturday, May 10th.   A HUGE Thank You to all of our wonderful volunteers who helped out this year!   We had a handful of "vine die back" from the winter so we pruned quite heavily. Time will tell how tough the winter really was on the vines.  We decided to remove all the Louise Swenson varieties that were planted in 2005 as they didn't perform that well, probably due to pH levels in our soil. They'll be replaced with two r...

Continue reading ...
 

It's Spring (soon maybe?) & Time To Prune

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Thursday, April 3, 2014, In : Vineyard News 
As I watch the snow fall outside and notice that my calendar says it spring, I have to wonder "when"?  Well!   It always has in the past and I think our grapes are starting to move around a bit and getting ready to wake up for another year.     So!    The plan is to start pruning the week of the 7th and continue till we are finished.    If you would like to learn more about pruning we are setting aside Saturday 12th and 19th as  " Prune and Learn Days".   Food and refreshments will be ...

Continue reading ...
 

Vineyard News - February 2014

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Friday, February 21, 2014, In : Vineyard News 
Looking ahead a couple of months, around the middle of April, we plan to start pruning. If you would like to learn the basics of pruning, let us know and come on over for some hands on experience.
     
In the last blog post we told you we would be harvesting the new 2-1-17 grape from Tom Plocher.  The harvest went great on these 17 vines in the experimental plot.  Rod Ballinger made wine from this grape varietal, which is currently aging in an oak barrel down in the cellar at Bear Creek ...

Continue reading ...
 

End of the Year Wrap-up

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Tuesday, October 15, 2013, In : Vineyard News 
The grape harvest is finished and all the juice is now waiting to get happy.     Thanks to all who helped this year, it was greatly appreciated.     We have finished putting everything away and are now ready for winter and I hope in a couple months to pick our Concord type and La Crescent that are netted and waiting to be made into Ice Wine.   We will have new pictures soon of our Facebook and website of what all happened this year at the vineyard.     Our new babies, the Petite Pearl ...
Continue reading ...
 

Thank You & Grape Pickers Needed!

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Tuesday, September 17, 2013, In : Vineyard News 
It feels like fall is in the air and a quick check on the grapes showed that the sugars are rising and we should be on schedule to began picking the last weekend of Sept.     Both the Frontenac and Frontenac Gris had a Brix of 21 yesterday and the King of the North 20.    Our Ice wine grapes have been netted and I hope that will keep the birds away this year.     We also have 3 boomers in the vineyard and 3 kite like hawks that fly when the wind blows......so damage to the crop this yea...

Continue reading ...
 

June Update from the Red Trail Vineyard

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Sunday, June 9, 2013, In : Vineyard News 
Hello Friends,

Just a quick update on what's happening at the Red Trail Vineyard.

All the vines have been pruned and they have began to pop their buds.  One of the first things out are the new baby grapes and soon they will bloom and start their journey to becoming wine.


Baby grapes budding out

We finished fertilizing the north vineyard and will now start our process of burning down the weeds.  Burning the weeds is done with a special solution of organic ingredients that is sprayed on the...

Continue reading ...
 

Pruning Party - May 4th!

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Wednesday, May 1, 2013, In : Vineyard News 

Hello Fellow Wine Lovers!

The snow has FINALLY melted and the vines are ready for pruning.  So we'll be hosting a Pruning Party Saturday, May 4th.  We'll be providing food & refreshments too.  Not sure how to prune vines? No problem as we'll give you a quick lesson as it's super easy.  If you can help out, please give me a call at 701-238-3337.

Thanks much!

Rodney



Continue reading ...
 

My 10th Trip To Oregon Vineyards...

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Monday, February 25, 2013, In : Vineyard News 

As I look out my window I see there is a guy mowing the grass.  So as you can decipher, since were in the final few days of February, I'm not at the Red Trail Vineyard.   Currently, I’m on my winter trip to Oregon checking out the wineries and vineyards in the area.  Last week I visited the Napa Valley in California and enjoyed many of their wines and first class wineries.  This is my 10th year that I’ve traveled to the Pacific Northwest and it's hard to explain this part of the world e...


Continue reading ...
 

Sleepy Time For The Vines...

Posted by Rodney on Wednesday, November 14, 2012, In : Vineyard News 
Tis the Season! All the work is finished in the Vineyard and we hope with this cool weather the vines will harding off and getting ready for winter.  The Winery is in the process of making our new wines and it looks like we will have a good supply of Alpha Rose for next year.  We decided to take out all of our St Croix vines and replace them with Petite Pearl.  Sometime in January or February we will prune our Petite Pearl vines and take the cuttings and root them to plant next spring.  The f...

Continue reading ...
 

Another Great Friday Night Dinner!

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Sunday, August 12, 2012, In : Vineyard News 
Thanks to all who attended our Garden Harvest Dinner August 10th.  We had 55 guests enjoying swiss steak, garlic & rosemary potatoes, creamed green beans, tomatoes, creamed cucumbers and fresh sweet corn.

We'll have one final Friday Night Dinner to close out our 2012 Season.  We've had many requests to bring back the "Juicy Lucy's" one more time.  So stay tuned for the menu and the date!!

Cheers!

Rodney

Continue reading ...
 

Friday Night Supper - August 10, 2012

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Monday, August 6, 2012, In : Vineyard News 
HI Folks we are back!
 
With a couple of busy weekends behind us it's time for another Friday Nite Supper.
 
THIS COMING FRIDAY NITE.....AUGUST 10th.You are invited to join us in a Garden Harvest Supper! Our Swiss Steak prepared in a mushroom sauce or a tomato sauce will be your choice for the evening. Included in your meal are garden fresh roasted potato's, along with tomato's, creamed cucumbers, green beans and fresh sweet corn.......GOSH!  It sounds like a meal Mom use to make! All homemade an...

Continue reading ...
 

Friends of Arizona Group Wine & Dine at the RTV

Posted by Michael on Wednesday, July 18, 2012, In : Vineyard News 
Thank you to the 'Friends of Arizona' group that wined & dined at the vineyard last night!  Grilled burgers, Grandma Hogen's Beans & Rod's Potato Salad fed this crowd followed by a piece of fresh rhubarb bars.  Red Trail Vineyard wines & beers from Miller Brewing quenched their thirst.  After dinner, Rodney led the group through the vineyard with a personal & educational tour.  And his guitar did make an appearance as well to entertain the crowd on the back patio to close out a very enjoyable...
Continue reading ...
 

Mexi-Nite Thank You!

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Tuesday, June 26, 2012, In : Vineyard News 

Thanks to all who attended Mexi-nite at the Red Trail Vineyard last Friday.  It was another great outing!  Our next Friday Nite Special will be on July 6th - Italian Nite including all the fixins'.   We’ll have a 5 pm and 7 pm seating.  Reserve your seating early as we fill up quick!

Other happenings at the vineyard this past week...

We had 700+ vines that didn't survive the winter so now we are pruning and training the new growth.  That training will continue throughout the summer.  Weed...


Continue reading ...
 

Friday Night Dinner at The Red Trail Vineyard - Huge Success!

Posted by Michael on Monday, June 11, 2012, In : Vineyard News 
Juicy Lucy Night was our grand opening for our Friday Night Special at the vineyard. And it was a smashing success! JuicyLucy's (made to order stuffed burgers) paired with Hogen's Famous Potato Salad won our guests over.  And of course a little surprise dessert didn't hurt either!  Thanks to all who attended. :)

So the question we were asked quiteften was, "Is this something you'll be doing every Friday?".  Well, it's something we'll be doing most Friday's, as our hectic schedule allows.  So m...

Continue reading ...
 

Great Winter Weather, Tough On Our Vines...

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Friday, May 25, 2012, In : Vineyard News 
As spring came early and summer is right around the corner we have been seeing more die back in our vines.     I thought because of the nice winter that this year we wouldn't see any vines die.    But that wasn't the case and currentlywe are experiencing a 50% loss of our vines for this year.      Our Marquette's, Prairie Star, Louise Swenson, St Croix, St. Pepin and Summerset Seedless have all died back to the ground.    They are now beginning to grow from the root.   So that means we will l...

Continue reading ...
 

Springtime News From The Vineyard...

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Monday, May 7, 2012, In : Vineyard News 
It's been a busy spring at the vineyard. Pruning the 2,500+ vines is nearly finished.  Most of the vines seem to have survived the winter but I have seen some issues with the some of the vines that I think had to do more with the dry fall and also with the hail damage on the canes. So this will be another year to wait and see on our production.  We have put in more earth anchors and will be working on building more trellis this year.  

Opening day is fast approaching - Friday, May 25th.  Somet...
Continue reading ...
 

All ready for winter!

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Monday, November 14, 2011, In : Vineyard News 
 
All the grapes, with the exception of the Ice Wine grapes, have been harvested and the juice is in cold storage until after the first of the year when it will be delivered to the winery.  But, we did start a small batch of Petite Pearl. This will be a very limited red wine and is from some of our early plantings in 2005 and 2007.  In 2008 we planted 75 cuttings and next year I will start training them on a new trellis system.  Petite Pearl was first planted in 2005 as an experiment f...

Continue reading ...
 

Winter Wine, Hail & A Grape Stomp...

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Thursday, July 28, 2011, In : Vineyard News 
It's beginning to look a lot like a vineyard........Yes!  With all the rain and warm temperatures the grape vines are growing fast and the grapes are larger than the size of a pea. But the bad news is we had a hail storm a week ago and it will reduce the size of the crop by 50% or more.  From my experience from the hail storm in 2007 the damage grapes turned brown and became hard and it didn't seem to affect the wine.  Our wine in 2007 was very good, but the production was low.  So I gu...

Continue reading ...
 

News from the RT Vineyard

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Monday, July 11, 2011, In : Vineyard News 
The grapes flowered a little later this year and need some sunshine and heat.  The last trip through the vineyard showed a lot of clusters and some of the grapes are now the size of peas and growing fast with the good moisture and warm temperatures.   I have been busy this week spraying the rows for weeds.  I use a product called Rely, which is a burn down chemical and it doesn't hurt the vines, only the weeds.

This past week we have been busy with groups that we provided food and wine ...

Continue reading ...
 

Latest from the Red Trail Vineyard

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Saturday, June 11, 2011, In : Vineyard News 
Greetings Friends,

All the vines are healthy and looking great.  We had a light frost last week but it didn't seem to hurt the vines, so now they are happy and growing fast.  We still have a lot of work to do and all the mowing will began this next week along with our fertilization program and it's time to start spraying Rely herbicide in the rows for weed control.
     
Still busy with the production of our 2010 wines and also working on new bottles and labels.  We will soon start produc...
Continue reading ...
 

Farm & Ranch Guide Story

Posted by Michael on Saturday, June 4, 2011, In : Vineyard News 
Check out this great write up from Dale Hildebrant of the Farm & Ranch Guide:

Farm & Ranch Guide Article

Dale will be writing more stories throughout the grape growing season. So be sure to check back!

Continue reading ...
 

Finally, Spring is Here!

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Monday, May 16, 2011, In : Vineyard News 
OK, did I miss spring ?    It seems that way with the many cold rainy days!   The good news is the forecast for a week for sunshine with temperatures in the 60's and 70's.
 
Our vines will be budding a little later this year but sometimes that not bad because the chance of a  frost is less as we start the end of May.  The vineyard is now all pruned and buds are starting to swell and soon will open. 

I finished spraying Roundup in the rows and spraying around the Tasting Room with 2-4-D f...

Continue reading ...
 

"Pruners Always Welcome"

Posted by Rodney hogen on Tuesday, May 3, 2011, In : Vineyard News 
It's spring and the pruning has begun!  Last week my son Darin and I spent a couple of days pruning and we are about half done.  All of the Frontenac Gris are pruned and only a few of the Marquette's are left.  Both varieties survived another winter in good shape and we lost less than 1%.  Darin and I also pruned the Frontenac Gris in the gofer vineyard and also started on the King of the North.   

Darin who has lived in the Wine Country of Oregon for the past 14 years was a fast learn...
Continue reading ...
 

HB1340 & Our First Event of 2011!

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Tuesday, April 12, 2011, In : Vineyard News 
Lot's of news concerning the Wine Industry in North Dakota . HB1340, which would give wineries in the State of ND the right to self distribute their wine to retail outlets, is a very important step in the survival of the industry in North Dakota. Thirty-nine (39) other states all have a similar law which has increased their sales and has created more jobs, tax revenue and tourism. The wine industry of North Dakota needs YOUR HELP. Please take a moment and contact your Senator and tell th...

Continue reading ...
 

Cold Climate Conference, Screw Tops & Winter Wine...

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Tuesday, February 22, 2011, In : Vineyard News 
I thought winter was over until this morning and we had to get out the shovels and clean off the drive. Rats!  Maybe next week?

We enjoyed our trip to the Cold Climate Conference held in Minneapolis this past weekend.  Many interesting meetings on marketing, wine making and grape growing.

This week we will start fermenting our Red Trail White. This white will again be a blend of our Louise Swenson, La Crescent, and Prairie Star.  We will also start our last batch of Marquette's from the 2...

Continue reading ...
 

Winter Update...

Posted by Rodney Hogen on Wednesday, February 9, 2011, In : Vineyard News 
The Winter of 2010 - 2011 was a one to remember.   It seemed like every weekend another storm came through and dumped more snow. To many of us if we weren't shoveling snow we were slipping and sliding on the roads. The good news is, the grapes are having a wonderful winter.  Lot's of snow to protect the roots and temperatures have stayed above minus 30. I am hoping our winter survival for our Marquette's and Frontenac Gris are again minimal. The Swenson Red, Summerset Seedless, & St. P...

Continue reading ...
 
« Back to posts
 

About Me

Red Trail Vineyard
Buffalo, Nd
Red Trail Vineyard