Thoughts on thinning - how much does a cluster contribute to yield?

It's such an early season in Canterbury this year!

Just before the nets went on in the Lincoln University Vineyard (the earliest they've gone on in the 13 years I've been here!), we were able to squeeze in some fruit thinning. That prompted me to write the following for the Wines of Canterbury newsletter...

Despite all the heat and promise of a fantastic season, why go through all that trouble when it looks like it will be a year where you can leave all that crop on and get it ripe?

Well, the first thing to check is how much crop you've got! We looked at the Pinot noir and Pinot gris and found that cluster counts were around 20 per metre of row for both of them. Not only that, but the clusters looked pretty big, too, so some more investigation suggested that berry number per cluster was around 125. So figure about 1.1 grams per berry for the productive clones of Pinot noir, and more than that for the Pinot gris, and you're looking at crop loads of around 2.7 or more kilograms per meter of row. Too much!!

For the mythical balanced VSP vineyard (refer to Sunlight into Wine, by Smart and Robinson, 1992), a typical pruning weight per metre of row should be about 0.5kg. Using a yield to pruning weight ratio of about 3 (which, while less than the 5 to 10 figure used by Smart and Robinson, seems to be more appropriate for vines in the Canterbury region) each meter of row should be able to (nicely) ripen 3 multiplied by 0.5kg of fruit, or 1.5kg.

So by doing some quick cluster and berry counts, we can see that there is quite a bit of extra crop on there, to the tune of at least a kilogram per metre of row!

So we need to take off about 44% of the fruit that's on the vine, which could be thought of as slightly fewer than every other cluster.

However, it's important to note that not all clusters are the same. The basal cluster is usually the most advanced in terms of ripening, so it's beneficial to keep as many of those as possible. But if you're removing all the upper clusters, it's important to note that they are also usually smaller, to the tune of about 70%, than the basal clusters. So if a basal cluster is 100g, the cluster above it will be about 70g, and if there's a third cluster on there (which the Chardonnay clone UCD6, for example, has in spades this season), it will be about 50g (it might be a good idea at harvest to do some measurements of this in your vineyard and with your varieties to see if this holds true in your situation).

So if you remove just the top cluster, you're looking at a reduction in yield by about 23% - not a third if you think of the clusters as being all equal. If you remove all but the basal cluster, you've taken off about 54% of the fruit. So to reach the goal of taking off 44% of the fruit, you should be removing all the top clusters, plus most of the secondary clusters.

Whether or not this is an economically feasible thing to do is another matter!!

Unwanted rootstock growth

There are lots of good reasons to use rootstock-grafted vines aside from their ability to grow in phylloxera-infested soils. We have rootstocks for dry areas, salty soils, high pH soils, nematode-infested soils etc.

However, grafted vines do cost more than own root vines, and for good reason - there is a lot of hand work that goes into producing each one. One of the important steps is the disbudding of the rootstock before the scion is grafted to it. If the buds are not removed, the rootstock can grow underneath the scion, and has the potential to drain some of the rootstock's reserves away from the scion, or in some cases, result in the withering away of the scion.

So one thing a viticulturist hates to see (or that I hate to see, anyway!) is something like this in the vineyard:

Here is 101-14 rootstock growing out from below ground on a Pinot noir vine. This is a case where the disbudding, which is done by a machine these days, went wrong, and a growing point was left on the rootstock of the grafted vine.

It can be difficult to spot if the machine has done a good job of removing he buds, but there's another chance to catch an error like this while the vine is in the nursery, growing the season after the graft is made.

Obviously, however, some of these devils get through and make it in to the commercial plantings.

What to do? Well, I certainly don't want them in the vineyard, so it was time to get down on my hands and knees and get rid of them. It's not as simple as pulling up the shoot, as if you do this there will invariably be some part of the shoot left, or some embedded buds will be left behind. So let the digging commence!

You need to cut the base of the shoot right out, much like you need to cut a node out on a trunk if you don't want to see any shoots arising from there later in the vine's life.

Therefore, you need to dig down to the base of the offending rootstock shoot, and use a pair of secateurs or similar to cut the shoot out, taking some of the bark and wood out from around its base. This should remove any basal buds that will be hiding in the shoot.

This picture shows where the rootstock shoot joined a vine - I used the secateurs to cut out a portion of the trunk around the base of the shoot. I leave the hole open for a day or two so that the wound can heal up in the dry and hopefully prevent any nasty soil organisms from working their way in there. Then the soil can be pushed back in.

If the job has been done right, and all the buds have been removed - no more rootstock growth. If it hasn't been successful, you'll have to do the job all over again!!

I hate digging in the soil around the vines, so I do my best to get it done right the first time!!!

Google Refine -a way to clean up and transform your data

I came across the online tool Google Refine the other day.

This is something like the search and replace function for data, only more powerful, and incorporating online resources.

Google acquired the technology from Freebase and its Gridworks software.

The tool allows you to manipulate data in both simple and sophisticated ways. Simple as in finding and replacing text and the like. Simple as in finding closely related entries in a spreadsheet and combining them with a few clicks of the mouse. Handy in finding typos in database entries and correcting them (I like this feature a lot!!).

More complex manipulations would be like taking information in a spreadsheet cell and using that to call up related information from the web, which can be added to the spreadsheet as additional columns. E.g., you could have a list of cities, and potentially query the web to get monthly temperature and rainfall data for each of them, without having to go through them all individually.

Mind you, this requires having the information available, and also it will require a bit of learning of the syntax required by the software to do the more complex manipulations, but on the other hand, it's a big step up from the functions available in the typical spreadsheet!

Wine Tasting commentary and notes -Lindauer Summer

Lindauer has always been a bright star for New Zealand's wine industry - partly because it was the most accessible sparkling wine in terms of price, but also because it was used as a loss leader for grocery stores, and could be had for $10, $9 or even $8 (almost half it's retail price!) a bottle! Amazing for a wine that is fermented in the bottle, and with 18 months of bottle age (it also ages very nicely in the bottle - we've had some really nice examples that had been sitting in the cellar for a year or more). At those prices, there is no better value in wine, sparkling or not, in New Zealand.

As a fan of the brand, I am concerned about the recent sale of Lindauer by Pernod Ricard to Lion Nathan New Zealand and Indevin, and hope that the production standards do not slip!

There is quite a range in the Lindauer brand - Sec, Rosé, Brut Cuvee, Fraise (a brilliant marketing design. Though I really don't like the stuff, it fits a market niche very nicely!) and more recently the Sauvignon (sparkling Sauvignon blanc), which I've tasted and think is pretty much spot-on for what a typical Marlborough Savvie drinker would want (not that it's my cup of tea, so to speak!!).

More recently, there has been a limited release in the form of Lindauer Summer, which is a sparkling Pinot gris made using fruit from Gisborne.

I know what to expect when I buy a bottle of New Zealand sparkling Sauvignon blanc, but what to make of this sparkling Pinot gris, when still wine versions of Pinot gris are all over the place in terms of style? There's only one way to find out! So... what's my take on it?

My tasting notes:

Nose:
Fresh apple (Jonagold variety, if you know it - one of my favourite apples!), honey, fresh plum and Queen Anne cherry

Palate: Nice fresh mousse, though not so fine a one. Good palate weight, with the flavour of sweet lemonade (e.g. Sprite carbonated drink or the like for those in North America that might be reading this!). Slight metallic character, but nothing too distinguishing in terms of flavour, except some Golden Delicious apple. Slight astringency, and a short length.

Note that this is not methode traditionelle, but a Pinot gris still wine that has been carbonated (like the Sauvignon). So a rough mousse is to be expected, as the complex of compounds that make a really fine mousse in bottle aged wines isn't there...

Overall opinion? I tweeted this comment about it:
"Drinking Lindauer Ltd Release "Summer" -Gissy Pinot gris sparkling wine. Verdict? Meh+. Not bad, not great, but keep up the experimentation!"

The slightly expanded version is that I like the fact that they're experimenting. I like that they're featuring a product made from Gisborne grapes, a region that has suffered a bit in recent years. I think they've made another product that will appeal to a segment of wine drinkers (personally, I don't think I'm in that segment), but I think it does suffer from an identity crisis.


The marketing does try to convey the limited availability and to some extent the wine style through the choice of the name, "Summer," but for me, it's not the sort of thirst-quenching drink I would expect for that name. IMO, it would need to have more acidity, and be more fruity.


However, I do applaud Pernod Ricard for putting this out in the marketplace, and I hope that they continue to do limited releases of different styles - always keep pushing the envelope!!


But of course, now it's no longer PR's job - it's in the hands of Lion Nathan NZ and Indevin! Keep up the innovation, please!!

Time for a pet peeve - Capitalisation of variety names!

Bear with me here!

One thing that the popular press seems to do is not capitalise the names of grapevine varieties.

Oh, sure, Glen, "big soap-box," you say... but this does really bother me!

In New Zealand it's rampant! Editors of the Christchurch Press, and related newspapers, enjoy a glass of "riesling," for example. The editors of the Listener will extol the virtues of the latest release of "sauvignon blanc."

And it's not limited to Australasia! The New York Times also finds it difficult to capitalise these proper names.

Thankfully, more rational heads prevail at JancisRobinson.com, where the real Pinot noir will stand up and be recognised!


In scientific publications, there is an effort to do the right thing and keep the capitalisation as it should be. The American Journal of Enology and Viticulture specifies that "for varietal names, the AJEV conforms to spellings listed in
the TTB listing of approved grape names for American wines
(http://www.ttb.gov/wine/wine-faq.shtml#w9)." This kinda takes it out of their hands, but at least it's an "official" source. And the US government uses capitals!!

But what about Europeans? How do they handle it?

For that, it's best to go straight to the source - the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (the OIV, http://www.oiv.int/uk/accueil/). They publish standards for viticulture and winemaking (for a more complete listing of their responsibilities, see this page), including such titles as the "Description of wine and grape varieties throughout the world," the "OIV descriptor list for grape varieties and Vitis species," and the "International list of vine varieties and their synonyms."

The latter of these, for example, lists names, all of which start with a capital letter - as proper names should!!

When you get to binomial names, such as Pinot noir and Cabernet Sauvignon, things get a bit more complex, with some people always capitalising both, some never capitalising the second of the names, and some doing a mixture, depending on what the variety name is. The OIV document has a mixture, for example.

So, is there a golden rule for capitalisation of variety names? Well, no. Sometimes in a two-part name the second name isn't capitalised.

But the first part of the name is _always_ capitalised!

Please, editors of the world, do the right thing and capitalise the names!! After all, how do you think people would react it if someone referred to barack obama, president of the united states of america??

Keep those old varieties!

Saw this article today, courtesy TizWine:

http://www.decanter.com/news/wine-news/499095/first-tasting-of-lost-grapes-in-southwest-france

It's nice to see that just because some varieties are not in vogue at the moment, people aren't necessarily discounting their worth!

It was not that long ago that Viognier was almost grubbed out of existence, with sources commonly stating that there were as little as eight acres of the variety left in France in the mid 60s. Now it is enjoying a renaissance with the New World wine countries, including New Zealand, experimenting with the grape and becoming quite successful...

Lesser-known varieties such as Sauvignon gris and Arneis are getting a mainstream chance, with reasonably large bottlings going on and being made available commercially (via Pernod-Ricard NZ Sauvignon gris and Arneis and Forrest Estate Arneis, respectively, to name a few -both varieties are worth trying - I've had the P-R Sauv gris and the Forrest Arneis).

So kudos to those around the world that are not following the wave and replacing all of the world's grape diversity with seas of Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay!

And to complete the circle, a thank you to all of you who go out and try a bottle of all these lesser known varieties! Unless it's sold and tried, we may lose some of these cultivars forever!


NB:
For an excellent resource on varietal names, have a look at the Super Gigantic Winegrape Glossary, which was put together by Anthony J. Hawkins. Sometimes entries are very detailed, but at the least, there's some interesting information in there!

How low is low enough?

First of all, let me say how lucky I feel for my family and home to have made it through the Christchurch earthquake with so little effect - my best wishes go to those that were not so fortunate!

However, despite the 7.1 magnitude earthquake, the vines continue developing! And about 10 hours after it hit, we were out in the vineyard, finishing up the pruning! This because we're on a pretty warm site for Canterbury, and the buds were showing signs of pushing, making it more difficult to prune. At this stage, the buds start getting more susceptible to being rubbed off, so pulling brush can be a very time-consuming affair if they get too far along!

So once that was finished, I could put on a lime-sulfur spray, which should help control any carryover powdery mildew that could have been left as dormant hyphae on canes left for the coming season.

Powdery mildew infections on dormant canes - the dark blotches are areas where the fungal hyphae have gotten into the shoot tissue during the season

Then came the job of getting ready for spring frosts! This takes the form of mowing the cover crop as closely as possible, so that as much solar energy as possible can be absorbed during the day, and the also released at night. A higher growing cover crop can insulate the soil from gathering the sun's energy during the day, and also keep it from radiating that heat at night, causing an increased frost risk.

So as the grass was relatively high, I had to do a first pass, and then another cut with the mower.

Closeup of the first (upper third) and second pass (lower two-thirds) of the mower. You can see that I've cut the grass shorter than it's been in a while as it's more yellow than the grass in the background.

A longer view of the row (sorry for the "Batman" angle!). First pass on the right, and second on the left.

So we're still a ways away from budbreak (meaning green tissue visible on the buds), and therefore the most sensitive time for the shoots to freezing temperature, but even now they are starting to be more susceptible to frosts. I will be keeping the grass as short as possible over the next few months!!