Pruning into the New Year

After the pruning

Alex pruning the Rondo vines

I'll be staying with my niece in January to help out after the birth of her second child so we took the opportunity to prune the vines today. It was a fine dry day and mild, too. We've had a high pressure centered over Ireland for about a week now and it's been very gray but dry and uncharacteristically mild. The weeks before were drenched by torrential rains. The land was flooded all around us. Lucky for us, our land is sloping. The roses have not ceased blooming, the grass is growing and many plants are budding due to the mild weather. We may even have a New Year's daffodil. I was worried that the grapevines might not be dormant, but they did seem to be.

The Rondo and Solaris vines are doing well and are quite robust except one Rondo. They took severe pruning. The chardonnay vines are looking very nice and were easy to prune and stake.

The one-year-old Solaris vines were very easy to prune. Two of the 50 had been cut by the strimmer when Alex last cut the grass. Two others looked possibly dead. One was missing. So Alex will order five to replace those. The vines were inconsistent in growth. Some were quite long while others remained very small. Could be due to the dry summer.

We've decided to complete the row that has the chardonnay test vines with more test vines. Alex wants red, but I don't want Rondo, so we're looking for short season reds to try. My money is on Pinot Noir, but we'll see. He has also ordered Albariño vines to plant on another section of field. The plantation expands.

Another season comes to a close. Happy New Year to all.




From GuildSomm 

Woohoo, Taittinger has bought land in England.

Taittinger have expanded production to some 6,000,000 bottles and bought land in England to cope with a warming world. I think we're onto something here.

This winter is really much warmer and wetter here. I'm afraid that the grape vines, which I have not yet pruned, will come alive and won't be exposed to the necessary cold. I'm planning to prune between Christmas and New Year. But so many plants have started growing again, including the grass. It has rained unrelentingly for weeks. This week is the first decent weather we've had in recent memory.

Any way, Champagne is a blend of chardonnay and pinot varieties. We woudn't be able to call it champagne but who cares. Prosecco is doing just fine. Let's invent a new bubbly name. Hmmmm.

Happy Christmas to all. I'll try to post again soon on progress with pruning.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-12-22/taittinger-champagne-in-photos