I may have published my eBook and paperback version of The Vineyard Years and that’s quite neatly wrapped up the first 70 blogs on the topic of arguably most northerly vineyard in England. But life goes on after the last chapter. Admittedly at times over the last few weeks it hasn’t seemed like much has been happening for me to write about but, as we will see, there’s stuff been happening.
For example, last night (Wednesday) I ‘attended’ my first webinar run by Wine GB, the vine-growers association to which I belong. The topic either came about with amazing foresight or it was arranged in impressively quick time. It was entitled ‘after the frost, what next?*
It wasn’t just our vineyard or my neighbours that got frosted. Far from it. It seems from reading all the anguished emails from other members, that vineyards further South of ours (which means about all of them), had it far worse. Some of them reported 90, even 100% of the new buds killed off by the frost.
Listening to the experts last night it seems it is debatable whether there will be secondary growth on these affected vines or will it be the case that the whole of this year’s harvest has been wiped out? It’s a matter of waiting for a couple of weeks to see if any new, green shoots poke their heads out from the gnarled, dead-looking vine. There’s no more unimpressive looking plant on this earth than a dormant vine. Every year I look at ours and think, that’s surely dead. And the hoot is, some of them are.
But I digress. Here’s the double irony. We have been mocked a little by Southerners for trying to set up a vineyard full of ‘sun-loving, Mediterranean vines’ in the wilds of North Yorkshire. How very dare you, seems to be the message from some down South. But the thing is because we’re so far north and because our weather has been so cold (and incredibly dry incidentally) very few of the vines have any buds at all. Sensible things, buds. Well Yorkshire ones anyway. They take one look outside and say to each other I think we’ll wait for it to warm up a bit (as it has now) before we stick our heads out. Except that is for the young ones who don’t know any better. More of this in a minute.
It certainly was cold that night. Minus 4 in fact, no wonder we hunkered down under the duvet in the barn. Our first night away from Leeds in about eight weeks and I can report it was bloody cold.
So no buds, no frost damage. Ha, put that in your bougie ( a French word for a candle which is used as a form of frost protection according to last night’s experts about the best form of protection and only moderately expensive – did they say £2,000 a hectare for 3 or 4 nights coverage?) and watch it smoke.
The photo at the beginning of this vineyard blog shows a vine with just a few buds (if you can see them) but they don’t all look like this. some have not a bud in sight. Anyway, I won’t be laying out any money for frost protection so I’ll just have to take the rough with the, what was it?
What I am planning to spend more money on is, rabbit fencing. A more predictable pest in the world of the unpredictable land of grape growing. Here again there’s another irony. It comes this time courtesy of my neighbour across the way. He has planted 1,000 new vines about a month ago. Last week, as I’ve said, we made our first trip up to the vineyard and at his invitation drove up his extremely rough track to inspect his work.
They looked great. He’d cut his tubes in half so they’d be about 30 cms tall which meant you could see all the little buds pushing out. Also this meant it was easier to slide the tubes up and down the cane. But that’s another story. Every single vine had ‘taken’ and was bursting with life. At least they were until that very night (last Thursday) the frost got every single one of them (except one). I haven’t written ‘killed’ because, as above, he will have to wait to see if they / any survive.
Again with the irony (I need to come up with a different word). Had he not cut the tubes in half, chances are his new, tender vines would have survived. As did the fifty newly planted vines in our vineyard (which he planted for me because we couldn’t escape lockdown to do it – I don’t think there’s any more irony left in the world) except this bit – he forgot to cut one tube in half and that one vine survived. He’s not a chap easily given to crying being a Yorkshire gamekeeper but I suspect he must have been on the verge.
I was telling you about the irony (and again and again) and this was certainly a big part of this retirement blog but for the other part it’s back to the rabbit netting. My neighbour had rabbit-netted the whole of his 1,000 vines and in so doing he had persuaded me to do the same. I checked with my man who does for us, he was quite willing to do the work. I went to the local hardware store and ordered 50 posts and 200 metres of the netting. Check.
Job’s a good un, I thought. Did I feel a tiny bit smug at having seized control in this one area? Maybe just a little. Because he / she upstairs proved once again what a sense of humour s/he has. Think you’ve taken control do you? Well, not so fast, kiddo. Because the enemy is not in fact rabbits but frost. We’ve had approximately 10% damage. Let’s see you order up a solution for that from the hardware store. Spoiler alert, I’ve already told you. There is no certain solution and even the uncertain ones are very expensive. Probably worth the money if you’re a commercial vineyard but not for me with my distinctly amateur status.
So, as you can see, even when there’s not much to write about, there’s still plenty to write about.
*Another first, thanks to Wine GB membership. A member asking if anybody was interested in buying second-hand oak barrels from France if she got a van load together. I said I was. Pity I’d have to pick them up from East Sussex. But if you read the Irish blog you will know I’m prepared to go to great lengths to fail to buy oak barrels. We shall see if anything comes of this reaching out.