Just as we aim to farm in the service of nature, we seek to farm in the service of our community. In the spirit of reporting to our community “shareholders,” I offer this 2024 review. It’s lengthy, but there is much to report: a fantastic harvest, widespread recognition of our environmental approach, and the slow emergence of plans for our next chapter.
Loss of biodiversity may be humanity’s greatest threat, even more than climate change. Food production is the primary cause. At Dodon, we seek to reverse this trend and thus enhance the ecosystem services that will allow us to reduce our physical and chemical footprint…
Every season, I’m dazzled that the buds break, shoots grow, inflorescences bloom, and fruit sets and ripens. It’s a bit like the sun coming up in the morning. Who can complain after that miracle? But some vintages are more successful than others. And despite the challenges, 2022 was more triumphant than most.
It has been more than a year since I last wrote to the club. Focused entirely on the logistics of keeping our staff healthy and employed, I had lost the ability to concentrate or convey a coherent story, even a summary of the 2020 vintage.
But now the 2021 harvest is over, and the wines are aging. So, it is time to reflect on what has happened and what it means and to uncover the more significant lessons from the vintage.
Loss of biodiversity may be humanity’s greatest threat, even more than climate change. Food production is the primary cause. At Dodon, we seek to reverse this trend and thus enhance the ecosystem services that will allow us to reduce our physical and chemical footprint…
Every season, I’m dazzled that the buds break, shoots grow, inflorescences bloom, and fruit sets and ripens. It’s a bit like the sun coming up in the morning. Who can complain after that miracle? But some vintages are more successful than others. And despite the challenges, 2022 was more triumphant than most.
The year started normally enough. The autumn had been good to us. Warm weather, absent the extreme rain of 2018, meant healthy vines entered dormancy. We enthusiastically embraced new cover crops, created a novel composting program designed to stimulate mycorrhizal fungi, and bought a flail mower to mulch vine pruning wood in the vineyard.
Things may have seemed simple in 2019, but they were not.
After the rains of 2018, the 2019 vintage brought welcomed change. Unusually dry weather that started in mid-July helped make the harvest, at first blush, delightfully simple. The vines politely stopped growing at veraison, focusing their energy on ripening the fruit. The vineyard team was, well, in the vineyard, the work progressing quickly and efficiently. Picking, sorting, and processing seemed almost effortless. The wines made themselves.
Maryland farmers are confronting the challenges of changing weather patterns that are the result of carbon pollution and warmer temperatures. Following heavy rain last September, more than in the previous five Septembers combined, red wine production in 2018 from our vineyard in Davidsonville was less than half the amount it had been the year before.
Polly and I are spending the holidays with our granddaughter, Juana Magdalena, in a little town called City Bell, just east of Buenos Aires. Polly’s three daughters are all here too, almost as much fun as Juana. As the summer solstice passes, our days are filled with family, exercise, asados, newspapers, a bit of sightseeing, and, for me, Spanish lessons. There is a fruit and vegetable farm within walking distance, and freshly butchered meat and chickens on the way, with none of the planting, weeding, feeding, watering, and picking chores of farm life.
