The Madeleine Angevine vines are lined up and tidy after their August trim. A rare break in the rain early on Friday morning prompted a tree climb - well, with a ladder - to immortalize this celebratory view. The romantic notion of sipping our own wine while gazing upon our own immaculate rows started us on this lark. I think we vaguely, thoughtlessly, assumed they just grew like that. But trimming miles of hedge is now our August fate. You can get tractor-mounted trimmers......

 

Now we are on to the Kernling. The wet

season has meant we are having to be

more stern than usual in hand-trimming

the leaves off the high-level Kernling vines,

to avoid an impenetrable tangle of leaves

around the grapes. It's a knitting and

secateur job to untangle the wayward

shoots, remove the fruitless ones and take

most of the first three nodes of leaves off

each fruiting cane. The labour-free

July and early August of these high-level

vines is now turning into a slow, if  bucolically satisfying, inter-shower task. Only got to row 8 but these liberated grapes seem to be enjoying their sunbathing, glistening in Friday's early-morning dew.