Strange weather

 

A gale blew on Sunday, most strangely. We reached gusts of 50.2 knots, with temperatures above 20C and high humidity. I've never felt weather like this in Ireland before. We had the occasional sprinkle but nothing much to speak of. It felt tropical, but here we are in September, and there have been no hurricanes in the Atlantic yet this year, and none are expected to form in the next 7 days. 

Meanwhile, I came down with a respiratory infection, probably Covid, which is reportedly circulating in the vicinity according to HSE trackers. So I am drinking a hot toddy with honey. It really works. 

The tides will be super high next week, so let's hope for the best. 

Albarino in polytunnel

 

I harvested the Albarino in the polytunnel as it was starting to look tired. The Brix measured 18-19. Not bad for our first crop of this fine grape from two vines rescued from the vineyard. There were several leaves that had 2 grapes growing out of them, a curious phenomenon I have not seen on other varietals. The Solaris and Rondo have grapes growing alongside tendrils but not alongside leaves. In future years, perhaps we can add the albarino to our Solaris must. It might make an interesting wine. 

I also harvested the single bunch of Buckland Sweetwater, a heritage variety, and it is nowhere near what it used to be at Ross. I imagine it will take a few years to produce those huge, juicy bunches Meike used to harvest. 

Adapting to climate change

 

"As many of us joke, there is no “normal” vintage anymore—to the point that when we do get a year our parents’ generation might have called normal, it feels like such an aberration that even normal is no longer normal." 

It seems to be happening everywhere. An early start to the season, wet spring, dry summer, early harvest. Until it's not. A winemaker on substack reports that they are about 65% through their 2026 vintage in their historic Bedrock Vineyard in Sonoma County. 

Liam here in Ireland was preparing to harvest his Solaris weeks earlier than normal when the birds devoured about half of his harvest. 

We're not ready yet, but at least it is raining here so maybe, just maybe, we'll have a decent take. 

 

Dry land

 

Despite the recent rain, the ground below the surface remains powder dry. Heaven help us! Literally. 

Brix

One of the vineyard owners posted a note that he was just getting ready to harvest Solaris when the birds took half his crop. That spurred me into starting to measure the Brix of our grapes. We are not close to harvest yet. 

The Solaris came in at 15-16 while the Rondo were more varied. I measured from 12 to 16. The Pinot Noir aren't changing colour yet, so I didn't bother measuring them. 

Yesterday we had some extraordinary weather, including 5.5 mm of rain. The temperature was quite nice, and a gentle breeze blew without gusting. One extraordinary thing that I noticed was that our soil temperature was the warmest in the country at 17.8 C. The next warmest was 17.5 C in Belmullet. Dublin Airport was 16.0 C. That's quite a difference. I'll have to start watching that as it could have a bearing on our vineyard success. I know we have an unusual microclimate due to Clare Island's parting of the clouds. We can watch them flowing down both shores of Clew Bay while we have sunshine down the middle. We've observed the clouds meeting up and reconnecting again in Castlebar. 

Station              Rain Max   Min   Sun     Wind     Gust        Soil   Global Gmin

                                mm     oC  oC     hr     Kts (Km/h) Kts (Km/h) oC J/cm^2 oC

Newport Furnace 5.5    17.3         14.6            8.6 (16)          (0) 17.8      569 14.5

August Stats

The numbers are in for the month of August, and the stats for Newport Furnace are not nearly as dire with respect to rainfall as I expected. I still cannot see the data on my PC, but I can access it on my mobile. I cannot, however, copy and paste it here. 

Rainfall totalled 111.5 mm, which is not as far off from the 133.0 LTA. Mean temperature was 15.9C, right on the LTA of 15.5. Soil temperature was, however, on the high side and similar to last year at 17.4C. 

It's supposed to be raining heavily right now, but nada. Several vineyards are reporting heavy losses of crop to birds. 

The Vine at Turlough

Very impressive

Yesterday we took part in an event where we harvested grapes from the vine at Turlough that attendees could take home. Andrew gave a short talk on the vine's history and restoration, and Barry, the owner of House of Plates restaurant in Castlebar, provided recipes and tastings of grape jam and chutney. Delicious. He also introduced us to an unbelievably delicious blue cheese called Mike's Fancy Cheese Young Buck. 

When we arrived at 11 am, the glass house was full of giant bunches of grapes. They weren't quite ripe yet, but they were being harvested on the day for cooking. Some were left behind for show and tasting when ripe. At 12 pm, the event started in the courtyard room. They later took people in to see the vines in small groups. 

Tomorrow I will make chutney from the 5 kg of grapes we brought home. We could have had three times as much. It took me 2.5 hours to destem and crush them this morning. (I also processed 2 kg of broad beans. Never again.)

On Wednesday, we are giving a talk on the development of our gardens and vineyard to the Westport Gardening Club. I built a large PowerPoint presentation for it. Hopefully, it will be of interest. 

Perfection. Foster's seedling. Two reds made a white. 

A teinturier Andrew brought in for tasting.
It was very red inside and out.

John with a monster bunch

Beautiful

Well curated

A wild herb Barry added to chutney

Here are Barry's recipes:

Grape and Apple Jam

2 kg grapes
400 g jam sugar
250g haw berries 
150 g woodruff
5 cooking apples
300 ml water

Cook all ingredients together over a low heat for about an hour until the mixture reduces and becomes thick. Pour through a sieve. 

Grape and Apple Chutney

Step 1
2 onions, diced
2 chunks of ginger, diced
400 ml rice vinegar
400 g jam sugar
200 g dark brown sugar
2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp chilli powder
4 cooking apples, peeled and diced
1.5 kg grapes

Cook all for roughly one hour until the mixture reduces and thickens. 

Step 2
4 apples diced
4 plums, diced
500g grapes, halved
2 tbsp honey 

Add ingredients in step 2 and cook for a further 10 minutes. Store in sterilised jars.