Sunday, November 20, 2011

Can we "grow" wine?



This issue has come up a few times in my circles recently.

We have used in various documents the word "winegrowing" or the phrase "winegrowing industry" to describe the grape and wine industry. More than a few people have come back and said that no such word exists because cannot grow wine, and suggested alternatives such as grape growing, wine producing etc.

I did a bit of searching to see how commonly used it is - I already knew it was well-used in New Zealand, as the national grape grower and wine maker organisation is called New Zealand Winegrowers (http://www.nzwine.com/) and their national publication is called the New Zealand Winegrower magazine (http://www.ruralnewsgroup.co.nz/winegrower).


Most of the regional grape grower and wine maker organisations include "winegrowing" in their name New Zealand Winegrowers and is used in the popular press, e.g. in New Zealand, and article in Stuff.co.nz and it's associated publication the Marlborough Express, as well as the New Zealand Herald.

Overseas it's used in the popular press, too: The Wine News, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, The Independent....


As well, there are several organisations overseas that incorporate the word into their names:

The wine company Krauthaker in Croatia
(did you know that Texas ranks Fifth in wine production in the USA?)


Surprisingly to me, it is also not a new term, being used in the popular press back in the 1960s and 70s

An of course, there's even a Facebook page about it:

So a bit of research finds that yes, it is a common term and that it isn't a new one (at least, in the English Language - I haven't checked for translations of foreign words that might mean the same thing).

This all makes sense, as in essence, we do grow wine. Wine quality comes about to a very large extent from where and how the vines are grown, as this affects the composition of the grapes and the wine that is made from them.

Winegrowing as a term has come about, in my opinion, from the recognition of the importance of the grape, and how it is cultured, to wine production. The essence of wine comes from where the grapes were grown and the manner in which the vines were managed.

And this is what keeps most wine from being a commodity!

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Shoot thinning - The importance of keeping your head clear

Note -this post is based on an article I wrote for the Wines of Canterbury newsletter this month...

Spring is all around us in Canterbury, and the grapevines have responded by shooting away madly. From trying to keep pace with the grass growth (trying to keep it as short as possible), now that the frost season is (hopefully) dying away, my attentions have turned to canopy management.

On the ideal, balanced, vine we get even bud break and shoot development and one shoot arising per node left at pruning. While we all strive for the ideal vine, it is something that rarely occurs, so we are left dealing with reality - in the case of my five year old Pinot noir vines, reality means that I occasionally get more than one shoot per node left, and there are a considerable number of extra (non-count) shoots coming from the head region.

Because I have only a backpack airblast sprayer for my own vineyard, the air turbulence it makes isn't all that good, and therefore neither is spray coverage. I need an open canopy to make the most of what the blower can deliver. So this means I can't tolerate all the extra, non-count shoots that have popped up on the vines.

The ideal shoot density for a VSP-type system is around 15 shoots per metre of row, or about 6-7cm between shoots. On cane pruned vines, the internode length of the cane laid down during pruning determined the spacing of the nodes and therefore the expected shoots in spring. So if you have used canes with a shorter internode than this, you will have a potential problem. For me, 18 shoots per metre of row (about 5.5cm between shoots) is okay, but every time you increase the number of shoots per length of row, you're increasing the risk of poor fruit exposure and lesser air movement - neither of which is desirable. And this is not even considering the possibility of extra shoots coming up from nodes or from the older wood around the head.

So I went through a did shoot thinning the last couple of weekends. The general rule is, retain only one shoot per node left at pruning, and if you're taking one off, remove the one with less crop. However, there are times when I left the second shoot on. This happened when there was a blind node next to the node with two shoots - in that case, I would often leave the two shoots, so as to make sure the canopy was continuous and to keep the average shoot number per metre near its target.

Other times, the internodes were shorter than ideal on the cane that I laid down, so then I might remove a shoot from a node position to make way for the neighbouring shoots (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Compressed internode leading to two closely spaced shoots. I took off the ones (there is a secondary, non-count, shoot pointing toward the camera) on the centre-right to open things up a bit   
In yet other cases, shoots would be growing out from the lower side of a cane and shooting sideways rather than up (see Figure 2). I will remove these, too, if they are going to grow to the side and therefore put a lot of leaf in the fruiting zone.

Figure 2. A sneaky sideways slithering shoot. Definitely up to no good!!

Around the head of the vine things get a bit trickier. A mantra of mine is that thoughts about pruning carry on through the rest of the season. If there is a non-count shoot that could be of use when it comes to pruning later in 2012, then I take pains to preserve it! For instance, I have a couple of vines where the canes laid down originate very close to the fruiting wire, but no growth is available below it to leave as a spur. Therefore, if I get any kind of growth below the wire, I hope to save that in the hope that it might become a decent spur to leave at pruning, or better yet, leave as a cane.

This means I take a bit of extra time to ensure I don't remove something potentially important, but then when it comes to pruning next year, it will make the job easier and therefore faster.

The before and after pictures of shoot thinning can be quite enlightening (Figure 3)! There should be quite a bit of space between shoots at this time of year, which is good for the development of flower clusters for the 2013 vintage (they will be initiated in the month of December, so good light exposure now should mean good light exposure until flowering) and good for airflow.


Figure 3. Before and after pictures of shoot thinning around the head region on a 12 year old Pinot noir vine. Note that no shoots have been left at the top of the head - this is because it's very close to the fruiting wire, so shoots arising from there wouldn't be able to be used effectively at pruning. As well, opening up the head area leaves space for the shoots coming up from below the wire.

The reason why I do this thinning now is that it's a lot easier to see all the shoots, and a lot easier to take them off (especially without damaging neighbouring shoots), but also because I want to ensure I get good spray coverage - some areas around the heads are very densely packed with shoots.

On my ultra-premium vineyard, labour is something that I try not to skimp on. After all, when an academic plants a vineyard, it's bound to be under a lot of scrutiny!!