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. 

CDs fluttering

The CDs flitting in the sunlight look really lovely in the vineyard. The donkeys are inspecting their new berm and drain in the field. 

Albarino in the polytunnel

 

About a week ago, I brought one of my refractometers down to the polytunnel to see if I could track the grapes' ripening there. About a week ago, the Albarino tested at a Brix of 15. Today, they are 17.5. Looks like we might make 20 next week. Should I wait? There are only three bunches on the one vine and one bunch on the second vine. But that's four more bunches than we got outside. 

Work in the vineyard and related today

 

Multimac landing a crowd on Inishoo

While I hung CDs in the vineyard as the grapes were maturing, Alex hung the gates for the new donkey access to their stable. The donkeys kept a close eye on both of us. They are such smart creatures. They don't know what to make of the new berms and fences and gates. But they investigated thoroughly. 

Yesterday we had not just a massive picnic on Inishoo; we went to Kate and Tom's for their usual August open house. It was full on yesterday and today. Great August fun!

I had lots of old CDs from program disks that I prepared and hung. One of the grape growers lost their entire crop this week, which prompted me to take action as Rondo veraison is accelerating with this warm weather. We'd had CDs up before, but one of the big storms decimated the lot. I need more. It looks quite pretty. I also chopped a lot off the Solaris vines, which are growing like wild. The grapes are small though, as there has not been enough rain.  

Alex still has to put up the extra kites. He's still thinking that harvest will be mid-September. I'm thinking it will be sooner. 

The weather issues are really accelerating round the world. Italy is underwater, as is Long Island and parts of NYC. Nevada is burning as are many other states and European countries. We have to be grateful for everything. 

And today, Ukraine staged a parade of robots and drones by land, air and sea to commemorate Ukraine's 35th Anniversary of Independence. Slava Ukraini! 

fun.

The picnic was super. Mussels and clams, sausages, potatoes boiled in seawater, freshly caught mackerel, hamburgers, and lots of salads. 

Life in the west of Ireland requires island adventures. 

Today I hung CDs in the vineyard and started bagging. One of the other vineyard owners lost their entire crop yesterday to birds. We know what that's about. Veraison is well underway in the Rondo and Solaris, and looks like it might actually start up soon in the Pinot Noir. I am praying for that to happen. 

Digging ditches

 

With the heavy rains we'd been having the last couple of winters, the donkey stable was soggy for prolonged periods. The water was even flowing over the wall and into our neighbour's yard. So Alex had the idea of digging new ditches across and down the length of our land. The field behind the shed will empty into the ditch that runs along the bottom of the vineyard. The ditch along the western perimeter will empty at the bottom. 

The flexible pipe we had installed along the perimeter had succumbed after years of compression. The new pipes are metal sewer pipes which should hold up better. 

Needless to say, the whole yard being dug up with heavy digger tracks all over is distressing. I bought lawn seed to scatter right away, but it certainly won't replace the lawn in time for winter. 

There will be a new gate in the middle of the donkey field with a berm planted with a blackthorn hedge and fencing either side of it. I suppose it will look nice eventually. 

It appears that harvest of the grapes may take place quite early this year. The Rondo are progressing quite rapidly. Need to get more kites up and start bagging. The Solaris harvest may not be great as the grapes are remaining tiny and there's very little rain in the forecast. The Pinot Noir are maturing but still not changing colour. Will we get veraison as hoped? 

Solaris

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir

Rondo

Rondo