This morning. Two hours of pruning and tying-down in Barbara (the Missus) and Cherry's English vineyard at Wyfold. Started sunny but ended up grey and very cold. I think snow is coming. The vineyard year has started because the sap is clearly rising. The vines 'bleed' when cut.
Which is how come I get drafted in when it was clearly understood, when this venture started six years ago, that this was strictly Barbara’s thing. I work at wine all week and many a weekend . Did not want my free weekends full of vineyard work which as we in the trade know is much the
hardest bit. But, Barbara’s powers of persuasion show no signs of weakening. So here I am.
Actually I have begun to see the therapeutic side of it. The vineyard is this high, gently sloping field of stones with wide horizons. You're out there for hours under a big sky, just mewling red kites and cawing crows above and the bare silent vines around. It calms you. Unlike the office.
Takes two of us an hour to do a row. Barbara does the skilled bit; selecting the best cane for fruiting this year, the spur for next year's fruit and trimming the rest. I come behind with this strange tape-and-staple gun, tying the cane down to the fruiting wire.
The old way was with willow shoots. Still used in places. You'll see willow growing still around vineyards. Just stumps of trees. Which sprout a mass of bright, yellow shoots every year. Which are cut, bundled and placed in streams or ponds to soak and get supple before being strapped to some old vigneron’s side and used as string to hold down those wilful vines.
Anyway that's 14 rows of Block One done. 11 rows of Block Two to go. Block 3, 22 rows, is only two years old so doesn't need tying yet.
Its hard work is a vineyard. Occasionally even Barbara and Cherry - two tough ladies - have felt overwhelmed. But they now have wonderful help from me! Actually they seem to prefer the volunteer teams from Laithwaites that come for an evening about once a month when it’s light enough, and plough through a mass of work. Thursday we had the first team of the year up here. About 15. Eddie from the shop, Will, Antonella, Scott and others off the phone, my PA Max, Jane the computer genius, lovely Amy who runs our tastings round the country, Alison a web designer, Lyn and Tim from Marketing. Two hours very hard work. All the cuttings cleared and burnt. Then me cooking sausages, doing hot dogs and wine. Standing, chatting, out there by the fire, as the light fades. Yes, nice after a hard day at the office.
It's good if your life revolves around wine, to get right up close to it. Feel it, smell it. After an hour one of our volunteers asked "So how many times do you have to prune like this?"
Well, this is the second pass. The first was to do the first, rough pruning, before the sap rises. Then we do this; untangling and pulling off all but two or three canes. Then, tying down the chosen cane, then de-budding, then the first tucking in of new shoots, then a 2 or 3 more trims to keep the growth compact, then leaf-stripping to let the sun and air at the bunches, then thinning out a load of bunches, then fitting the anti-bird netting. And finally harvesting. This is not counting the tractor passes; the spraying, hoeing and rotovating. Quite a few of those.
"All that"! Yep! For about a bottle or two per vine!
They are impressed.
Then I remind them we did all that last year and then there was no crop; it failed to ripen in the appalling summer! And we're told to expect another just the same!
You do have to be a bit mad to do this. Or really, really love your vineyard.
If we had tried this tying-down earlier when the vines were still dormant they would have snapped. Some of the little darlings really fight being bent and tied to the wire. But at least the buds have not yet started swelling. They will with the next fine weather. Try doing this then, with sprouting buds everywhere, all big, and soft, and you'll risk accidentally knocking them off the vine. No bud = no shoot = no grapes. So we have this period of just a few weeks to get the three acres done.
Which is how come I get drafted in when it was clearly understood, when this venture started six years ago, that this was strictly Barbara’s thing. I work at wine all week and many a weekend . Did not want my free weekends full of vineyard work which as we in the trade know is much the
hardest bit. But, Barbara’s powers of persuasion show no signs of weakening. So here I am. Actually I have begun to see the therapeutic side of it. The vineyard is this high, gently sloping field of stones with wide horizons. You're out there for hours under a big sky, just mewling red kites and cawing crows above and the bare silent vines around. It calms you. Unlike the office.
Takes two of us an hour to do a row. Barbara does the skilled bit; selecting the best cane for fruiting this year, the spur for next year's fruit and trimming the rest. I come behind with this strange tape-and-staple gun, tying the cane down to the fruiting wire.
The old way was with willow shoots. Still used in places. You'll see willow growing still around vineyards. Just stumps of trees. Which sprout a mass of bright, yellow shoots every year. Which are cut, bundled and placed in streams or ponds to soak and get supple before being strapped to some old vigneron’s side and used as string to hold down those wilful vines.
Anyway that's 14 rows of Block One done. 11 rows of Block Two to go. Block 3, 22 rows, is only two years old so doesn't need tying yet.
Its hard work is a vineyard. Occasionally even Barbara and Cherry - two tough ladies - have felt overwhelmed. But they now have wonderful help from me! Actually they seem to prefer the volunteer teams from Laithwaites that come for an evening about once a month when it’s light enough, and plough through a mass of work. Thursday we had the first team of the year up here. About 15. Eddie from the shop, Will, Antonella, Scott and others off the phone, my PA Max, Jane the computer genius, lovely Amy who runs our tastings round the country, Alison a web designer, Lyn and Tim from Marketing. Two hours very hard work. All the cuttings cleared and burnt. Then me cooking sausages, doing hot dogs and wine. Standing, chatting, out there by the fire, as the light fades. Yes, nice after a hard day at the office.It's good if your life revolves around wine, to get right up close to it. Feel it, smell it. After an hour one of our volunteers asked "So how many times do you have to prune like this?"
Well, this is the second pass. The first was to do the first, rough pruning, before the sap rises. Then we do this; untangling and pulling off all but two or three canes. Then, tying down the chosen cane, then de-budding, then the first tucking in of new shoots, then a 2 or 3 more trims to keep the growth compact, then leaf-stripping to let the sun and air at the bunches, then thinning out a load of bunches, then fitting the anti-bird netting. And finally harvesting. This is not counting the tractor passes; the spraying, hoeing and rotovating. Quite a few of those.
"All that"! Yep! For about a bottle or two per vine!
They are impressed.
Then I remind them we did all that last year and then there was no crop; it failed to ripen in the appalling summer! And we're told to expect another just the same!
You do have to be a bit mad to do this. Or really, really love your vineyard.
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