Silent Pool Rosé

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 clear water with a beautiful blue green colour.

The pool has a genuine ancient history and may have been a prehistoric religious site. In the nineteenth century Silent Pool became a popular place to visit and in 1858 a local man from Albury, Martin Tupper, wrote a story about about the pool which has now become folklore.

The story tells of a beautiful young woman, Emma, who took to bathing naked in the pool. Prince John heard of this and rode up to see for himself. He arrived to see Emma hanging from the branch of a tree, dipping in and out of the water. Emma saw John and his men arrive and tried to escape by wading deeper into the water. John pursued on his horse until Emma, out of her depth sank beneath the water. Her brother tried to rescue her but also drowned. The story ends by claiming that Emma's ghost now haunts the pool.

Cap Fall and Flowering

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 early this year because of the warm Spring. Generally good weather at Wimbledon indicates a good harvest!

The flower clusters of grapevines are quite inconspicuous. They are panicles (loose, irregularly branched flower clusters) with individual flowers, or blossoms, on the end of each branch. If successfully fertilised, these blossoms develop into grapes. Grapevines self-pollinate and are therefore not reliant on outside help from insects or animals. The overall number of clusters provides an early estimate of potential yield.  This is currently looking good on our vineyard, especially for the Seyval and Pinot Noir.

A lot can happen between now and harvest to effect the yield with disease being the biggest risk, especially in an organic vineyard. Birds are also a worry. Also Alex and John Buchan are keen to reduce the number of bunches to encourage root growth and the strength of the plant for next year. We have agreed to leave two bunches per shoot on the majority of the vines but only one bunch on the Pinot Noir that will be used to make the still Rose to encourage ripeness (less important for the bubbly).

The Vineyard in June

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 frosts in May. As this is a manual process it can take some time but Richard is helping out by drilling holes with an auger to make planting a bit easier for Alex. We have also been through the Block A (planted in May 2009) and pruned the canes that were left extra long to try and minimise the impact of frost. The new vines have all now had excess shoots removed and have been tied to the bamboo canes.

Overall the vines are looking healthy; the rain earlier this week was welcome and will help with growth but unfortunately it also brings with it the risk of disease. Next week we will spray the foliage with compost tea, followed a week later (when the vines have blossomed) by Serenade® which contains Bacillus subtilis, a soil dwelling bacterium that helps control Mildew and Botrytis.

Monty Waldin addresses the second Organic and Biodynamic UK Vineyards Meeting

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.com

Monty explained that Biodynamics is based on organic practices but also uses natural forces (like those provided by the moon), medicinal plants (such as chamomile, stinging nettle and dandelion), minerals and natural cow manure composts. This strengthens the vines which also produce healthier, more vital wines, reflecting the character of the vineyard.

Presentations were also given by Vinodh Krishnamurthy, from Laverstoke Park Farm Laboratories, who explained the importance of the Soil Food Web, and Alex Valsecchi of Albury Vineyard who talked about the preparation and application of Compost Teas.

There were around 40 attendees representing 15 UK vineyards as well as a number of consultants and organic suppliers. A very successful day demonstrating the ever increasing interest in Organic and Biodynamic viticulture.

Sustainability in the Vineyard

I recently attended a very interesting Wineskills workshop on Sustainability in the Vineyard, facilitated by Professor Steve Wratten -a cockney living in New Zealand! Steve is a leading light in the Greening Waipara project in Lincoln, New Zealand, which aims to build biodiversity back into the wine experience.

Steve poses the question "How can nature help us with agriculture?" Agriculture, including viticulture, damages biodiversity and in New Zealand has caused major declines in their native plant and animal populations. He argues that the current high level of chemicals used in viticulture  is unsustainable.

So what to do? At Waipara they are conserving their remaining undisturbed habitats and introducing additional biodiversity to enhance the services that nature can provide for free in the form of biological control of pests, pollination, improved soil quality, conservation and eco-tourism, to add value to vineyards and reduce reliance on herbicides and pesticides. Fifty North Canterbury vineyards have already signed up to the scheme.

For our part we are already organic so we don't use herbicides and pesticides. However we we will be looking at surveying our current wildlife, planting cover crops to improve biodiversity and creating a biodiversity trail around the vineyard. We also look forward to adopting any sustainability standards that emerge from the current initiatives being undertaken by the UKVA and Plumpton College.

For more details of the Waipara project: http://bioprotection.org.nz/greening-waipara

Vine Mortality

We have now made a count of dead vines that were planted last May. Overall we had a 2.8% mortality rate, with the Chardonnay faring the worse. The detailed analysis is as follows:

Cultivar	Rootstock	Dead Plants	Total Planted	% Mortality
Pinot Meunier 865	41B	24	1250	1.9%
Pinot Meunier 925	41B	33	1250	2.6%
Pinot Noir 115	Fercal	17	1100	1.5%
Pinot Noir 459	Fercal	3	1100	0.3%
Pinot Noir 870	Fercal	8	1100	0.7%
Pinot Noir 872	41B	7	1100	0.6%
Seyval Blanc	SO4	27	1175	2.3%
Pinot Gris 457	Fercal	4	175	2.3%
Chardonnay 95	Fercal	36	1450	2.5%
Chardonnay 124	41B	83	1450	5.7%
Chardonnay 277	41B	110	1450	7.6%
Total		352	12600	2.8%

It's interesting that the Chardonnay 124 and 277 cultivars fared so badly and that the Pinot Noir did so well. In the next couple of weeks we will be replacing all the dead plants by hand. 

Chilly on the Vineyard

Gary and Philip after lighting the Boujies

I was rudely woken by the weather station alarm txt this morning at precisely 2.51am.... with news that the wet bulb temperature had dropped to 1.3 degrees and that the soil temperature was already below zero.

So it was off to the vineyard in the dead of night to fire up the frost guard machine and to light the orchard burners and boujies. Thankfully Philip and Gary responded to my call for help and between the three of us we had everything lit by around 3.45am.

There was a light ground frost with the weather station wet bulb reading reaching a low of 0.4 degrees and the soil temperature falling to -1.6 degrees at 3.41am.

Now back home at 6.30am with temperatures rising above zero now that the sun is coming up over the tree line. Thankfully no frost forecast for the rest of the week. zzzz