Yeast - the X-Factor for Biodynamic Wine?

Recent studies at Stellenbosch University have suggested that variations in the aromatic properties of wine, from identical grapes harvested in the same vineyard, may be due to differences in the yeast composition within the vineyard. This is because the microbial species present on the berry may contribute to the fermentation process.

Whilst the same yeast-like fungus, Aureobasidium pullunans, known as black yeast, was dominant in all vineyards, the research supported results from other studies that biodynamic farming leads to greater richness of microbial diversity. In a conventional vineyard 11 species of yeast were found while 17 species were identified in a biodynamic vineyard.

Interestingly, “many yeasts with biocontrol potential” were found exclusively in a biodynamic vineyard, some of which are the natural enemy of botrytis. The authors speculated that this unique diversity could be as a result of the establishment of the natural enemies of different pests given the absence of pesticides and synthetic fungicides.

You can view the full study here.

2012 Round Up

It is often said that you learn most from difficult years - if this is the case then I'm now the fountain of all viticulture knowledge! 2012 wasn't a complete disaster for us but we will hope and pray that we don't get another year as bad for a long time.

The season started with a warm period which resulted in early bud break and we were woken by frost alarms no fewer than eight times in March and April. Fortunately the Boujies did their trick and we were able to prevent any significant frost damage. The weather was then cold and wet in May, June and early July, resulting in late flowering and very poor fruit set ... and some downey mildew to boot. The lack of summer sun meant that a lot of the fruit then didn't ripen fully and we ended up having to selectively hand pick the ripe bunches. Overall we harvested about 3.5 tonnes of fruit compared to the 15 tonnes we might have hoped for.

The good news is that we seem to have fared no worse than non-organic vineyards and the juice from the grapes we did pick is really good. As a result we are hopeful of releasing about 1200 bottles of Silent Pool Rose 2012 next May, less than we had planned but more than last year. We have decided to blend the sparkling base wines from 2011 and 2012 to produce a high quality fizz, which should be available for the summer of 2015.

We are now busy pruning 21,000 vines in preparation for a fabulous and sunny 2013.

 

The Vineyard in November

The vineyard in November

November is probably the only quite month in the year for a vineyard and it should be the time for a vineyard manager to take a well earned rest. For Alex this means she will have time to take her 500cc motorcycle test!

Having completed the harvest, the vines are winding down and there isn't a lot to do before we start pruning in December. Last week we sprayed the vines with a copper solution to kill off any disease and later this week Alex will drench the ground with compost tea to improve the fertility of the soil and return some of the nutrients that were used for the grapes.

Once all the leaves have fallen and the wood has ripened we will start pruning the vines. It's going to be quite a task this year as there are 21,000 that need to be expertly cut back, leaving the best canes to tie down for next years growth. Luckily we have December, January and February to complete the task.

Alex, cow horns and some dung!

Horn Manure in the making

Now that we are biodynamic we have started to make our own biodynamic preparations. One of the most basic is Horn Manure (preparation 500) which is made by burying cow horns stuffed with dung from lactating organic cows.

Biodynamics is probably the most advanced form or organic viticulture. "Bio" means life and "Dynamics" means energy. It is an holistic approach which harmonises nature's elemental forces of the earth (the soil), water (the vines), air (the weather) and fire (the sun). It also recognises that the phases of the moon have a significant influence on plants.

Earlier today we buried our first cow horns on the vineyard which will be left there over winter. Alex wasn't too happy that the dung was pretty fresh but none the less did great job of stuffing it into the horns! The horns are dug up in the Spring, the contents dynamised in water and then sprayed on the vines. The purpose of this preparation is to improve the fertility of the vineyard. It also connects the vines to the land to encourage a sense of terroir in the grapes and ultimately the wine.

It is difficult to understand how the small quantities we use can make such a difference, but just because it is difficult to comprehend doesn't mean that it doesn't work. Many great vineyards and wineries around the world are convinced by the biodynamic approach, including Domaine Leflaive and Le Roy in Burgundy, Coulee de Serrant in the Loire, Beaux Freres in Oregon, Hensche in Australia and Jean-Pierre Fleury in Champagne.

2012 - A Challenging Year

2012 will be remembered as a very difficult year for vineyards in England. Quite simply the weather has been dreadful - the worst that anyone can remember since 1997.

Having successfully protected the vines against the April frosts, the problems started with poor fruit set in the summer. Grapes pollinate themselves and need a period of dry warm weather in late June/early July. Unfortunately it was wet and windy which reduced yields to only 25%-30% of what they might have been. The wet weather also resulted in some downey mildew on some of the chardonnay. More recently the lack of sun meant that some of the fruit took a long time to ripen and the harvest was delayed by almost 3 weeks. We were then hit by a fairly severe Autumn frost!

To make sure that we didn't compromise on quality we have selectively hand picked only the ripest bunches of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier for our Silent Pool Rosé 2012. We won't have a lot of it (around 1200 bottles) but what we do have should be very good.

Overall we picked about 3.5 tonnes of fruit which will also be used to produce a base wine for our bubbly which will be released in 2014/2015.

Alex and the team have done an amazing job this year in delivering some great fruit in very challenging conditions. It is particularly gratifying that we were able to do this whilst sticking to our organic principles of not using any systemic chemicals to fight off disease. From what I've heard we have faired much better than most conventional growers.

Many thanks also to family and friends who helped with the picking. Ever optimistic, I'm sure that next year will be a bumper harvest.

First Pinot Grapes are Harvested

Yesterday we hand picked around 700kg of Pinot Noir for the 2012 Silent Pool Rosé, which produced around 450 litres of excellent must. It's been a very difficult year so we decided to selectively pick only the very best fruit to ensure that we maintain our quality standards. Next week we will pick the ripest Pinot Meunier which will also be used for the still rosé. The production this year will be small like last year but the quality should be good.

The Seyval and Chardonnay still need to ripen further and we are keeping our fingers crossed for a bit of an Indian summer next week.

Harvest Update

This time last year we had picked all the grapes on the vineyard and Silent Pool Rose 2011 was in the making. This year the weather has been so dreadful that we have had to delay the harvest for 2-3 weeks to take advantage of a few last rays of sunshine, which will hopefully increase the sugars and reduce acid levels. Whilst good sparkling wine requires fairly acidic juice, still wine needs to be made from must with lower acid levels and a higher sugar content.

To help the ripening process we have been stripping leaves away from the grapes and taking off unripe bunches to give the remaining fruit the best chance of ripening. Some of the Pinot bunches are now quite ripe but equally some are not. We have therefore decided that we will probably pick the ripe bunches at the end of next week and leave the others for a further week when we will also pick the Seyval and the Chardonnay. A final decision on picking dates will be made this Wednesday when we will assess the acid and sugar levels with our expert winemakers.

Whilst quantities will be lower than we would have hoped for this year, there is still a good chance that we can produce some really good quality wine.