Coulure and Milllerandage (Hen and Chicken)

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 sections or even complete sets of flowers fail to produce fruit.

This year our Seyval have suffered and as a result yields may be lower than expected. However as we were planning to take off some of the bunches anyway, so that the young vines don't get to stressed, this might not be too bad news.

Interestingly the Pinot Noir and the Pinot Meunier have much better formed bunches, probably because they flowered slightly earlier when the weather was a bit better.

As flowering generally occurs during Wimbledon fortnight, the weather during the tennis is often a good indicator of potential yields for English vineyards. If the weather is good it is normally a forecast of bumper yields. If it rains throughout I probably won't be in the best of moods!

A Bird of Prey to Keep the Snackers at Bay!

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, rockets, electronic audio bird repellers and of course netting.

One of the most effective deterrents is a bird of prey. However, as we don't have a local falconry, we've invested in the next best thing which is a kite in the shape of a hawk which swoops, dives and climbs in the wind just like a real hawk. It is attached to a 25m flying line with a 13m kite pole and should protect 3 to 4 acres of vineyard. We have also bought a Vigilante Helikite which is a shiny balloon filled with helium which flies up to 60m high and theoretically will scare birds off the whole of the vineyard. Both these products can be purchased from Allsopp Helikites

So far the Hawk Kite seems to be flying well; time will tell how effective it is keeping the birds away. Later this week we will try out the Helikite. Hopefully the birds in Albury will decide it's safer to stay on the landfill.

English Rosé Tasting at the Vineyard

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, Denbies, Stanlake Park, Three Choirs, Brightwell, Meopham and Gusbourne. The tasting was blind and lead by Stephen Skelton MW. Ulrich Hoffman, who will be making our still rosé, was also there amongst a number of friends and local restaurant owners.

The runaway winner was the Camel Valley which they describe as a light dry rosé with intense strawberry flavours. It is made from 67% Pinot Noir and 33% Dornfelder.

Our rosé will also be made from Pinot Noir but with Seyval instead of the Dornfelder. We will decide the percentage mix and even what rows to use in 4-5 weeks time when we will be better able to judge the quality of fruit.

Engagement at the Vineyard

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.

Sadly the poppies have now mostly gone. However maybe another potential revenue stream for the future!

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.