Autumn Vineyard Photo Essay, Part 5: Grenache

Our Grenache section is always one of the most beautiful in the vineyard.  Grenache vines are vigorous, and provide satisfyingly thick trunks from even fairly young vines.  The leaves are a vibrant yellow-green during the spring and summer, noticeably brighter than other varietals.  They stay green later in the season, and explode into color when other varieties are fading to brown.  First, a closeup of brilliant orange foliage from a Grenache Noir mother vine in a pot on our patio:

A good example of the chunky Grenache trunks and other varietals can be seen below, from the old block that we planted in 1992.  I also love the greeny-reds of the Grenache foliage contrasted with the brown of the Counoise block below and with the grey-green of the olive trees:

Finally, this last shot looks west from the top of Mount Mourvedre (the Mourvedre section is behind and to the left of where I was standing when I took the shot) across two blocks of Grenache and toward the golden hills of the ranch to our west.  At the western edge of the property, the brown leaves are from a block of Syrah, while in front of there the bare vines are Mourvedre: