Oatley Vineblog

Thinning the Windbreak

Mon, 6 Sep 2010 19:31:27 +0100

We meant to do something long before this. Long-standing readers will remember I blogged about the overgrown poplars in the windbreak back in 2007. They shade their neighbouring vines in the afternoons and it is starting to curb the crop size for 3 or 4 rows. Now that the real vineyard work is mostly done, I’ve been thinning the bits I could reach with a bow saw, to let the nearby rows see the light. You can see the bottom 8 feet or so is thinner. My pile of logs is in the first photo below.

Iain saw what I was doing and came along with the chain saw. I’ve always been wary of them, which I know is pathetic, and I have to admit they get a faster result. Here’s a video clip of the first of the poplars hitting the deck, thanks to Iain. It’s sobering to fell a tree you’ve planted yourself. A sad and solemn moment. But there we go, red in tooth and claw, us. Now it’s all sawn up and in the wood-store. As I write we’re sitting next to the first logs burning, cheering us up after a gloomy wet afternoon. And well they burn despite being so green and being... well... poplar. Iain’s logs are in the 2nd pic.

Our swallows left yesterday, 2 days earlier than last year. 60+ of them - lots of successful families. Bon voyage little beauties, see you in April we hope.

The grape sugars are 2 days earlier than ‘09 too, though today’s rain might slow them a bit. The Madeleine are well on the way to being ripe, mid-50s Oe, and for the moment the wasps have gone thanks to a few single-figure nights. The Kernling grapes are 50% softened and at the top of the vineyard they’re starting to turn colour. The colour change in pink grapes is later in the veraison process than in a true red variety, where it is the first sign. Be harvest before we know it.

Veraison

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:59:38 +0100

Veraison is the stage or ripeness when grapes suddenly soften, swell and become translucent. If they’re black grapes they start to turn colour. If they’re white ones they go pale. More than half of the Madeleine bunches have done it, like these taken into the sun today. A few days ahead of last year. The Kernling are still hard as peas - they wont veraise for another 2 weeks or so.

It’s a big crop. So far. Though we’ve seen the odd wasp feeding on the ripest Madeleine bunches.....

Here, so you can see where they’ve all
got to, are

Madeleine Angevine
(cordon/spur-pruned) - 2 big bunches
per cane. Mostly veraised with
sugars averaging 40 Oechsle and the
odd bunch in the high 50s.

Kernling - Guyot
(replacement-cane) pruned:
Bunches closed but grapes still hard.
Two or three bunches per cane and this
year the bunches are bigger than they
sometimes are. The flowerbuds that
made these would have formed
during the hot June in 2009 - it’s
surprising how far in advance the crop
size is influenced.

Kernling - High wire:
(tied onto the top wire and dropping
freely - the Oatley sprawl). These grapes
have been de-leafed and out in the sun
since mid-July which has given them a
thicker skins and a slightly more golden
colour than their traditionally-trellised
brothers above, whose leaves have only
just been trimmed. We finished the
trimming Saturday.

Fingers crossed for them all - we’re just hitting that very twitchy time for vinegrowers.

New row numbers

Wed, 4 Aug 2010 20:59:38 +0100

Up till now I’ve written the row numbers on the end-posts with marker pen when I got fed up with counting to remember where I’d got to. But it doesn’t stay legible for long. I found these numbered 5cm diameter brass “valve tags” at www.identitag.co.uk. As you see you also get an 8 character legend. So I got sets for the Kernling rows. They look good. I think I’ll get some for the Madeleine Angevine too. They’ll have to be Mad.Ange.

The vines are enjoying this weather. We
haven’t had the hot days of south-east
England but June and July were much warmer
than average, with breezy days consistently in
the low 20s C and comfortable nights in the low
teens. Second warmest to 2006 according to the
Met Office records for Somerset. The bunches
are closing, even on the delayed Madeleine here.
All looks set for another big harvest if we get a
good autumn. We’ve just finished deleafing the
high-wire Kernling and started the main trim on the rest.

Sad to report, our grey pony Asti has gone to meet his maker. Regular readers will remember him as our free-range sustainable vineyard grass mower. He graced our lives for 25 of his 37 years, sweet and bubbly, like his name. We miss him.

Summer Set

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:13:39 +0100

Yep. The vineflowers set their fruit super-quick in the sun and it looks a brilliant, more-or-less 100% set on the Kernling (above). The
Madeleine, which we delayed on purpose by
late pruning, didn’t quite finish flowering before
the weather broke (photo on the right taken
yesterday between showers), but it’s a variety
that can set pretty well in the wet so we’re happy.
Setting’s a key landmark for the vintage. So far,
so good.

Trip to Oxford last Monday for a Wineskills
masterclass on powdery mildew and wood
diseases at the plant sciences lab. This is the
old Forestry Department of the university, all
beautifully panelled in different, labelled, woods. Building maybe 1930s? Lovely. And lunch in the quad. Great seminar, by Eileen Scott of Adelaide University, a world expert in vine diseases, giving us all the latest research gen. At Adelaide they’re working on what it is in milk that helps defeat powdery mildew. South Parks Road, where the labs are, is memory lane for us. Iain and I met there 40 years ago over a biochem bench.

Full flower

Sun, 4 Jul 2010 18:01:30 +0100

Flowering started same day as last year, despite the cold spring, and has rolled out down the vineyard slope over the last week. Here, at the bottom, the coldest part, are the Kernling in full flower this morning. Trusses maybe 5 cm long,

Great weather for a quick set - first dry July here since 2006. As you can see, we’ve de-leafed this vine already, exposing the flowers to the sun by taking off the basal leaves up to the 2nd flower truss. We don’t normally do this till after the set. Taking a chance on this dry weather to steal a march - much quicker and easier while the shoots are young. But the counter argument is the leaves shelter the flowers from the wet while the pollen flies. We’re trying it just on the bottom of a few rows, by the hedge where they’re most vulnerable to mildew. The extra exposure should help keep them disease-free. We’ll watch to see if it affects the set, then next year we’ll know.

Panic a few days ago when we found the flowers all covered with tiny 1.5mm black beetles apparently eating at the flowers. You can see a few in the photo if you look closely. Turns out, courtesy of the UK Vineyards Association’s ever-useful email forum and knowledgeable specialists, these are pollen beetles - same as in courgette flowers. These would be the sons and daughters of older ones our neighbour’s rape field hosted in the spring. Harmless and, as it turns out, now departing. Phew!

Have had to top the upright-trained vines. Some were over 2 ft above the top wire and in danger of flopping. Also started, reluctantly, to mow the alleys. Need the airflow, but they are beautiful, rippling mini-hayfields, supporting a huge range of insects. So we’re cutting every other alley, for now.

No herbicide trial: In the rows that were sprayed with glyphosate in April sow thistles are emerging now, as usual. As we’d hoped, there are less in the no-herbicide trial rows where they’re swamped by the grasses and other benign plants - clover, speedwell, pimpernel and lesser willowherb mainly. Sow thistles are bad news because they grow like lightning up into the vine canopy given half a chance. Some pics:

Newly-mowed no-herbicide trial rows on the left showing grass and other low plants but few big thistles under the vines. The hay mulch is still there on the left. April-sprayed rows - newly-topped - on the right - you can see thistles emerging mainly under the right hand row. All will need strimming soon.

Before: Unmown, untopped rows.