We are probably still 5 weeks away from the harvest as veraison is late this year. It started week beginning 26th August with the Seyval, week commencing 2nd September for the Pinot Meunier with the Pinot Noir a week later. Last week the Chardonnay were still pretty green.
Grapes have two distinct growth phases. The first phase is when the cells divide and expand and the grapes begin to swell and...
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| Alex dynamising 501 |
We were up very early today preparing biodynamic preparation 501 to spray on the vineyard.
Biodynamics is based on organic practices but also uses natural energy forces (like those generated by the moon), medicinal plants (such as yarrow, chamomile, stinging nettle and dandelion), as well as mineral and natural cow manure composts. This strengthens the vines and produces...
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| Leaf Removal using a Collard machine |
Around this time of year it is important to remove some of the foliage around the forming bunches of grapes. This opens up the canopy which improves airflow and reduces the risk of disease. It also allows the grapes to be exposed to more sunlight which improves flavour characteristics. Those of you interested in more detail should read Dr Richard Smart's...
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| A Sunny Albury Organic Vineyard in the Surrey Hills |
The temperature on the vineyard reached 35.8C yesterday at around 2.00pm as we completed the wire lifting on Block B. We were wilting but the vines are very happy with flowering, and now fruit set, throughout the vineyard.
Now that I'm a farmer I find that I'm generally always complaining about the weather, but the current sunny warm spell couldn't...
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| The beginning of flowering (Seyval) |
Flowering has at last started on the vineyard, with most of the Chardonnay and Seyval showing around 25% flowers. The Pinots are a bit behind but with the current warm weather we hope that most of the vineyard will be in full flower the end of the weekend. The vines are several weeks behind their normal growth cycle because of the cold weather earlier in the...
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John Worontschak of Litmus Wines and Marcus Sharp
supervise the bottling of our first bubbly |
Earlier this week I watched our first sparkling wine being bottled.
Since we planted our vines in 2009 and 2010, the weather has been against us and harvests have been extremely difficult. Non the less we have produced some excellent base wine which will hopefully result in a first class English bubbly.
The...
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We now have bud burst right across the vineyard. Bud burst, or bud break, is when you can see the first signs of leaves on the new shoots from the canes that have been tied down after pruning. These will develop into the shoots that will produce bunches of grapes later in the year.
As a result of the cold weather in March and early April, bud burst is probably six weeks behind last year. This is...
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It was bitterly cold on the vineyard last night with the soil reaching -7.6C and air temperatures as low as -3.6C. Fortunately, a result of the cold weather in March and early April, bud burst is late this year so hopefully there won't have been much damage.
Most of the vines are at "first swell", which means that the buds are showing on the canes but they are still brown with no colour. At this...
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It seems that Spring has finally arrived. We know this, not just because it warmer, but because our vines are weeping.
During the winter vines go into a deep state of dormancy and can withstand temperatures of -15C. But as the soil begins to warm up, and temperatures get above 10C, the vines start to wake up. The roots begin to absorb nutrients and water and osmosis pushes the sap up from the root...
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