When Barbara Shinn of Shinn Estate Vineyards posted a Facebook photo of sap starting to “weep” from the vines and then freeze as it dripped, we knew we had to see it for ourselves. I stopped in to see her Saturday morning after a couple of rainy days and she directed me to the sauvignon blanc vines.
The sap starts running in the vines as the temperatures rise, a sign that the vineyard will soon awaken, she told me.
“The sap in them weeps earlier than the other vines, but it will be one of the last to show any green growth,” she said. “It’s amazing. You can look out in the vineyard and it looks like its raining in the vines.”
“It has a mineral taste to it,” she said.
Another indicator of the vineyard’s impending revival is the ascending moon which affects the sap flow, said Shinn who abides biodynamic farming methods.
“We are going to see an increase in sap flow and a lot of weeping vines,” she said.
The 20-acre vineyard, tasting room and farmhouse bed and breakfast in Mattituck, has five varieties of bordeaux reds and five whites planted. Visit them at 2000 Oregon Road.
Previous North Fork Sunday Scene:
Baby doll sheep at Jason’s Vineyard
