Spring in the vineyard. There’s plenty going off in our own vineyard right now but let me start elsewhere entirely. I read an article recently entitled ‘Climate change: We’re making wine in Norway’. See link below. A title that grabbed my interest as you might imagine. Then the article said there might soon be 20 to 30 vineyards in this same area. Within five to ten years ‘we’ll probably have a little wine district.’ Wow.
The featured vineyard, Slinde vineyard by Sognefjord describing itself as, soon to be the most Northerly commercial vineyard in the world, is growing vines 61 degrees north of the equator far outside the 30 to 50 degrees ‘traditionally considered optimum for wine production’. I’d say we’re, at Trapping Hill, about 54 and a half north so even then we’re well outside the desirable maximum but no doubt that 61 is the winner, so far at least. One of the owners, Bjorn – what else? Says it takes ‘a particular kind of hard work and dedication’ to produce wine this far north.
Well no shit Sherlock. But then to be fair he does back this up with examples, like staying up all night when it’s frosty and talking to them when it snows and telling them it will be alright in the afternoon. So you can’t say the man doesn’t walk the talk although I’m not sure how staying up all night helps with the frost. There would be quite a few English vineyards who would be interested to know the answer.
Which brings me neatly back to our vineyard and a telephone conversation with my neighbour, he who has planted his own 1,000 vine vineyard on the other side of the valley. Probably not quite a ‘wine district’ but it’s a start.
He’s worried about those late spring frosts we seem to specialise in. He reckons more are due and, as the chief gamekeeper for a large estate, it pays for him to know what he is talking about. So he goes to great lengths to protect his vines. I don’t believe he talks to them, he’s not that kind of guy, but he almost literally wraps them in cotton wool. He keeps them all in tubes, we disagree about this but he’s almost certainly right (as I say it pays that he knows these things) and stuffs sheep fleece down the tube. All to keep the nasty frost away.
And we are at that time of year, the vines that have survived (not all of them by any means) are budding quite nicely so we don’t want frosts to wipe them out. As I have written before in these blogs the fact that the vineyard is on quite a steep slope helps the frost roll on by rather than linger. Yes, providing it’s the right kind of frost, my more realistic neighbour says. Anyway I hang on to this belief. Have faith, it’s much needed being where we are.
Not Norway it’s true but there’s a hint of the Scandi Noir in our vineyard experiences. Things definitely die as I’ve said but that’s why we’ve ordered another 50 replacement vines. But that’s assuming they arrive. My vine supplier (also my wine maker) is having trouble getting them into the country. Unless they’re in cold storage (as opposed to stuck in a lorry) they’ll start to bud and grow and then they won’t be fit to plant at all.
The latest delivery date we have is next Thursday the 28th and in the meantime I’m trying to coordinate my man to dig the holes to plant them. He’s already tied up the netting and cut the grass and all looks nice as maybe you can see above. We’ve just come back from the vineyard and, true to form, he’d dug all 50 holes because I thought all the vines would be here by now, but no. If the vines don’t arrive next week the holes will fill in and dry out and that’s not good for planting.
Spring in the vineyard summary
So as they say everything to play for. An exciting time with the buds just showing and the frosts threatening. We’ll have to wait and see what happens next.