I’m a little late in posting this blog. It’s nearer 2 months since the last one rather than the one month interval I usually aim for. It’s not that there hasn’t been plenty happening in my wine world, there has. But as we’ve been away for over three weeks in Ireland, it hasn’t all been to do with our own vineyard.
Talking of Ireland, let me begin with a report of a failure, at least so far. In one of our holiday blogs I reported on my latest plan to conquer the wine world, also code for cause myself more problems than I can handle. I wrote that I had grand plans to plant another ‘experimental’ vineyard (as I describe our vineyard in North Yorkshire).
This one would be extra experimental given that County Leitrim probably has less going for it as a wine-growing area, than North Yorkshire. But, as I described in that blog, a number of factors came together that piqued my interest in such a project. The availability of land from Mrs Summerhouse’s cousin, his interest in growing things, a country house hotel ready to offer their guests ‘home-grown’ / local wine and my willingness to spend more money on stupid schemes.
Well the last part was fine but the preceding aspects were not, as it turned out. Mrs SH’s cousin wasn’t as keen as I had hoped. He reckons he’s not allowed to change the zoning of his land from agricultural (cows) to horticultural (growing things). Seemed like rather a poor excuse to me and, given we’re still in the EU, as they are, I haven’t heard of such restrictions here. But then what do I know? So all my research about vines in Ireland and importing vines from the UK etc etc. all for nought.*
While I’m still on Ireland two more set-backs. First, my trip to the barrel-maker turned out to be a similar waste of time. When I found this company, which wasn’t easy, they told me they didn’t actually make barrels (as in photo in case you didn’t know what an oak barrel looked like)just sold on already used (mostly previously used for beer and wine of unknown origin). Strike two. I’m not sure where this leaves my plans to put some of our red in oak barrels.
The third strike, wasn’t really a set-back as it came and went so quickly. You wouldn’t call it fifteen minutes of fame, more like fifteen seconds. The time it took for me to return a call to the journalist who left me a message, while we were in Ireland, saying she was writing an article about vineyards in Yorkshire. She been speaking to Oz (that’s Oz Clarke – wine guru – to me and you, what a name-dropper). He had told her Yorkshire was the next big thing in wine producing. She wanted to interview vineyard owners. I was on some list, some place so she was calling me up to talk to me. True to my essentially modest nature, I told her she didn’t want to talk to me because ours was only a very small, non-commercial vineyard and there were much bigger and more serious commercial ones in Yorkshire. And I was right, she didn’t want to talk to me.
So much for fame and glory. So in- line with the three strikes and you’re out theory, I stopped thinking grand schemes for Irish wine and moved on to other aspects of our holiday. Like the music.
And so, the weekend after our return – the sister’s weekend you will recall from the last blog – I went up to the vineyard to check out what had happened in our absence. It’s always a little scary being away from the vineyard for any length of time and this had been over a month. What would I find? Answer? almost all good. ‘My man who does for us’ up there had trimmed most of the grass, cut a few more paths (and built the lean-to as I reported in previous blog). All looked fairly neat and tidy, at least by our standards.
Even better the vines had many buds. I never seem to record exactly when the first buds appear. If I were a proper viticulturist, I would most certainly do this so I could compare year upon year. The best I can say is that on my last visit (April 27th) the buds were just starting to appear on most of the vines (very similar to last year reading back through these blogs). Now they’re all over the place. Again, similar to last year, and that was after a very hot May which this year hasn’t been the case. Or at least so it seems from a distance. In fact there’s a bit too much growth so, they’re going to need some serious de-budding shortly. Otherwise we will be guilty, as we so often are, of producing masses of leaves but no grapes. True not a problem last year, but that was exceptional. We can’t really expect this year to be as hot and sunny so we need to be more ruthless. Easy to say, not so easy to do.
What was also pleasing was that all our newly-planted vines seem to be still alive. Not the case a couple of years ago when we planted new vines and the majority died. Still don’t know why. For this (being alive not being dead) I can probably thank a couple of our neighbours, our man who does stuff and one of the local gamekeepers – the one who wants to plant his own vineyard next year. They both watered the vines while we were away in Ireland. That, I believe, is what young plants need. So far so good. Less good was a couple of our mature vines seemed to have expired. Particularly annoying when they’re 5 or 6 years old. Hmm. Win some, lose some, when you’re growing vines ‘at the margins’.
My final bit of news, in this wine-related blog, is to report on my efforts to be a good member of the local community. This by giving away ten litres of our white wine in our most local local – The Crown. Our, not quite so local local, (also The Crown) said he couldn’t take ten litres of white wine in a carton because he couldn’t keep it chilled and nobody wants warm white wine. The second pub said he would keep it in his cellar (the first pub didn’t have a cellar he said, strange but I was in no position to disagree). Not sure where this leaves us with the 400 litres of red still in the barrel. Watch this space.
Anyway the feedback from the landlady of the local local and some of the locals has been all positive. Our farmer friend, he who helped us set up the vineyard in the first place), even took a specially-labelled bottle (by us) to the local BBQ (we were not invited) and reported it went down very well. Apparently money was made for the air ambulance. So all good. I wouldn’t say we’ve become the local heroes but then, in this part of the world, it takes generations to be accepted rather than years. So time yet. Not for me but maybe for the children.
*He also said his land wasn’t fertile enough to grow vines. He may know about zoning but I can tell him that vines will grow pretty much anywhere. May not produce ripened grapes but they will grow.