A Pinot Noir vine before leaf removal
After leaf pulling
Leaf pulling is the removal of leaves around the grape bunches, which allows the vines to dry off much quicker after rain or heavy dew which in turn makes the vines less susceptible to the spread of fungal diseases like mildew and botrytis. It also improves the coverage of spray applications, and improves sunlight penetration which helps to...
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Powdery Mildew
Sadly Powdery Mildew has arrived at the vineyard, at the moment primarily infecting some of the Pinot Noir on Block A.
Powdery Mildew survives the winter either within infected buds, which subsequently germinate to form mildewed “flag shoots”, or as tiny fruiting bodies that lodge in the bark on the vine which release new spores to infect youngtissues in the spring. Leaves are highly...
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Vineyards in Assmannshausen
The Rhinegau is one of the most famous and beautiful wine making areas of the world and is also a centre of competence for organic viticulture and wine making. At Geisenheim there is a grape breeding institute and research centre where organic viticulture is a compulsory subject for all of their 1000 students. In Germany there are 215 wine organic growers, farming 1,400...
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Coulure
Millerandage
If the weather is bad during flowering it can effect pollination and fruit set. This can result in bunches with small and large grapes, a condition known as
Millerandage which is often called "Hen and Chicken". The big berries have been fertilised and have pips and sugar but the little berries are sour and seedless. Poor pollination can also result in
Coulure, where large...
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Birds can be a big nuisance in the vineyard, especially as the fruit begins to ripen when some like nothing more to snack on the grapes. This is particularly worrying for us as we are close to a landfill site which is often covered in scavenging birds.
Vineyard managers use a variety of techniques to try and protect the fruit, such as hanging shiny CD's on the trellising, automatic firecrackers,...
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Now that we are nearing our first harvest we need to start thinking about the style of still rosé wine we would like to produce. Hopefully we will get some good quality fruit and we will have something to drink next year.
To help form our views, a group of us met at the vineyard last week to taste some of the best English rosé wines, including samples from Camel Valley, Chapel Down, Hush Heath,...
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Olivia and Jon get engaged at the vineyard
The vineyard has looked really beautiful recently with a swathe of poppies adding incredible colour to the landscape.
A local wedding photographer, Zoe Collyer phoned me recently requesting access to the vineyard so that she could take some engagement photographs of Olivier and Jon who are getting married this September and of course I was happy to oblige.
S...
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Silent Pool
Now that we are nearing our fist vintage we have to give some thought to the name for the still rosé wine, which will hopefully be available for sale next year. "Silent Pool Rosé" is the current favourite.
The Silent Pool is a lake of crystal clear water adjacent to the vineyard. The water feeding the lake comes from natural springs in the North Down's lower chalk resulting in completely...
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Vines have flower clusters with several individual blossoms that form a closed “cap”. The cap falls off during blossoming and the individual flowers appear. Measurement of the blossoming period begins when about 25% of the caps have fallen off. It can then take 5-10 days for the majority of them to fall off, depending on the weather. This normally happens around Wimbledon fortnight but is a little...
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Poppies in the Vineyard (photograph courtesy of John Powell)
The vineyard is looking fabulous at the moment thanks to thousands of poppies which have self seeded in Block B. Unfortunately they won't last for long as Alex is determined to cut them before they seed again in the woodchip mulch!
We are currently busy replacing about 350 young vines that died over the severe winter or were hit by the...
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The second Organic and Biodynamic UK Vineyards meeting was held at Laverstoke Park Farm last week. The theme of the day was Biodynamics and Compost Teas and we were lucky enough to have Monty Waldin give a talk on the application of Biodynamics in the vineyard.
www.montywaldin.comMonty explained that Biodynamics is based on organic practices but also uses natural forces (like those provided by the...
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