So Vineyard 90 and once again I can write that there’s plenty going on and across the whole spectrum of vineyard activities. From putting finishing touches to our latest production to the very beginning of the process, in other words planting our new arrivals, to which I referred in my last vineyard blog.
Perversely I’ll start at the end (in a way) for the simple reason that a) I’ve just received the photo above from our wine maker and b) it’s nice / important to be reminded, when there is so much to do in the vineyard, that there is an end product. As yet untasted but looking good. So fingers crossed for an early August release.
The photo above is off our fizzy rose wine in the riddling rack. We still have a couple of decisions to make. First, whether to add sugar or leave it Brut (dry). We’ve decided to add sugar to the majority and leave a dozen Brut hopefully and optimistically for future reference. That decision was easily made.
Second, a more difficult decision is what kind of labels to put on these bottles. We were hoping to design our own and for it to look something like the example below. I was also hoping we could get this done by the wine maker. He would do it but the cost of £250 seems too much bearing in mind that we won’t be recouping costs by selling. We’re already paying a lot of money to have this wine professionally made as a kind of vanity project you might say. So another £250 we thought too much. We have decided we will design and print off our own label and put the labels on just a few of the bottles. We will see how this end of the wine-making spectrum develops.
Meanwhile back in the vineyard, we’re making quite a few decisions about both this year’s new vines and the crop generally. The new vines we put in are needing to be watered quite regularly on account of the very dry hot weather. Weather that’s good for the grapes on the whole but not so good for the young vines with shallow roots. Tricky decisions to be made at this end of the spectrum.
The visit from ‘our’ agronomist’ suggested we might have a touch of downy mildew and this requires spraying with the green gloop, forgotten the name but I’m mixing it to a much thinner consistency. So that’s partially done and will need finishing off next visit (Achilles problem permitting). We’ve applied the granular fertiliser around the roots of the vines. Next we need to spray on a regular basis (every couple of weeks) with a liquid fertiliser (Multiple Pro).
The other side of our visit from ‘our’ agronomist was much more optimistic. I include the paragraphs below from his report about the health of the rest of the vineyard.
In general the plants have enough of the major macronutrients (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) and with the complex going on then this should continue until harvest.
We are a bit lower in Zinc and Magnesium but the Multiple Pro will add these with some copper and manganese which as its dry will come to the fore. So every 2 weeks with MP should help. I wouldn’t really worry about Iron and Boron as yet, the Boron if its low next analysis then might be worth applying, but not currently. In general it’s looking good.
So that sounds good but, as you can see, still plenty to do and made much more difficult by the fact we don’t live on site and now I’m hobbling with my Achilles. Hey ho.
Vineyard 90 Summary
So, not wishing to sound too smug, but on the whole things going quite well. That’s assuming the downy mildew doesn’t get out of control, so we need to keep spraying the green stuff. Of course there’s a long way to go until we have any grapes this year and if we do get them then all the netting to put back on. In the meantime plenty of jobs to be doing but then that was what we let ourselves in for when we chose to become vineyard owners. not sure we knew that when we started.