Review of the Irish wine industry by the Sunday Times

 

"On a smaller scale, Daria's Vineyard, near Westport, Co. Mayo, has just 130 vines but a very insightful blog." 

Woohoo! 

Progress in the vineyard

Getting close to bud break on all vines. Last year it happened on March 28. One Albarino moved to the polytunnel has also reached the same state. 

Solaris

Rondo

Pinot

New Rondo

Chardonnay

The Great Vine: origins of Black Hamburgh

Back in the 1800s, most people with large country homes had glass houses in which it became stylish to grow grapes. Ross House, Alex's ancestral home has one, a delicious white grape. The roots are outside while the vine grows through the wall into the greenhouse. That was the standard method then. Now we know that vines grow massive root systems that, if planted into the ground inside the greenhouse near the perimeter, will extend well beyond the greenhouse into the garden. We haven't tried making wine from that grape but I made a delicious jelly out of some last year. 

Landowners knew each other and shared cuttings of grapevines for propagation. Many of the vines from the early-to-mid 1800s around the UK and Ireland were propagated from one legendary vine grown in England. 

Originating from Germany where it is known as Trollinger, Black Hamburgh found fame and favour in the UK after Lancelot 'Capability' Brown planted a vine at Hampton Court Palace in 1768. More than 230 years on, the vine is known as the Great Vine as it is now over 120 feet (36.5 metres) long and produces an annual crop of 500 to 700 bunches of grapes weighing 500-700 lbs (220-320 kg). It is purported to be the oldest grapevine in existence. The Guinness Book of Records, however, lists Žametovka or modra kavčina (Bleu de Cologne), confirmed at 400 years of age, as the oldest vine in the world still producing fruit. This vine was planted in Maribor at the end of the Middle Ages during the Turkish invasions.

Often recognised as the easiest of greenhouse grapes, Black Hamburgh or Vitis vinifera 'Schiava Grossa', is a reliable, self-pollinating and strong-growing variety that produces a consistently good quality crop of delicious black dessert grapes ripening in mid-season. In Italy, it is used for making wines, producing a delicate rosé. We believe Black Hamburgh is what we rescued a few weeks back. 

The Great Vine  (From their website.)

Cultivation of the Great Vine 

"In February the buds begin to break. A fertiliser is applied to the soil inside the glasshouse and the vine border outside. Once the new shoots are 2.5-5cm or so long, it is time for disbudding to reduce the number of new shoots. The remaining shoots grow until they are 30-45 cm (12"- 18") long. They then have their growing point pinched out and are tied in with raffia. 

Immediately after flowering, the number of bunches are reduced and the remaining bunches are thinned. During the growing season the Vine is given liquid and foliar feeds. Later in the summer some leaf thinning is carried out to allow sunlight to fall upon the ripening fruit. In November and December when the plant is fully dormant, the fruiting spurs are pruned back to one or two buds."

 

Bud inspection

It's the 23rd of March, and we've only had 36.1 mm of rain so far this month. It's chilly and breezy today, but our mean temperature for March to date is a balmy 8.7C. We've had so much sunshine that we should do pretty well on solar power generation this month. The grass was growing fast but Alex managed to mow it yesterday.

I walked the vineyard today and checked on the status of vine development. Buds are beginning to swell as the cycle returns. Once again the Rondo and Solaris are ahead of the others. I sprinkled some white mustard seeds in the new Rondo row as a companion crop. We'll see if they germinate because a mouse got into the packet and gorged herself. It's supposed to be a super green manure. You are supposed to cut it and leave it as a mulch. 

The donkeys were playful today and followed Ghostie and me around as we traversed the vineyard, marching, rolling, and galloping in their field. They've been spending a lot of time in the shed even with the good weather. They seem to love it. We heard that the other two boys, named Paeder and Liam, are ready now having been gelded. So we should be getting two more. Finian who was an option has laminitis and needs to be watched so he won't be joining them. Five donkeys are plenty. I'm happy with three. I wonder how the young ones will get along with Brucie and the girls.  

Ghostie keeping a close watch

Rondo buds

More Rondo

Solaris bud

Solaris buds

Chardonnay buds

Pinot Noir buds

The vineyard tidied up

Blanche, Ursula and Bruce

Making mead and another shed

 

With all the trees down at Ross House, Alex brought some timber home from the trees downed on the avenue. He had some leftover lumber and corrugated metal sheets, so he built a roof over the logs so they could dry. 

Meanwhile, a fellow beekeeper asked if he knew anyone who would want fermenting honey. Apparently, if you don't get enough moisture out of it, the honey will ferment in the jars. And that's what happened. Hundreds of jars that could not be sold. Alex told the beekeeper he could use our equipment to make mead but he didn't want to as he doesn't drink. So Alex did a crash course in how to make mead and accepted the donation of honey. He boiled the water and let it cool, emptied the honey jars one by one, bought yeast and sterilizer, and then set about making mead, which neither of us thought we liked. We'd had rot gut mead at a Renaissance dinner years ago and were put off mead since. He bought special demi-johns and bottles, then went about sterilizing them. 

We tasted the first ferment and we liked it. Not like the Bunratty mead of decades ago at all. Lovely taste, lovely aftertaste, on the dry side. Alex decanted it into demijohns and it is precipitating out and clarifying. 

Alex added frozen raspberries to the second batch which made a lovely rosé colour. We can't wait to try that one. When this is all done, we're going to have many litres of mead. Never a dull moment in this house. Friends and neighbours will be recipients of our good fortune. 

Ghostie wondering what Alex is up to. 

Fake wasps nest to keep wasps away from the wood

Ghostie attentive.

No rain

 

It's March 20th, the equinox, when the sun rises due east and sets due west, and we've only had 19mm of rain so far.  I hope we don't make up for it in the next 10 days. Today reached 19C, the warmest day of the year so far but not a record. What is this strange weather going to do to the vine cycle?

Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization released its report on climate and 2024 was the hottest year in recorded history, the tenth straight year of record-making. 2024 was likely the first calendar year to be more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial era, with a global mean near-surface temperature of 1.55 ± 0.13 °C above the 1850-1900 average. 

Monthly values for NEWPORT up to 19-mar-2025

Total rainfall in millimetres for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2025	105.0	112.4	19.1										236.5
2024	125.7	197.5	152.5	119.4	48.8	80.7	80.8	257.5	44.1	150.7	143.3	173.7	1574.7
2023	183.2	91.6	188.4	121.1	48.5	77.9	206.8	139.8	142.4	144.7	209.6	293.8	1847.8
2022	98.8	260.4	67.8	84.0	107.0	148.0	59.2	104.1	97.3	233.9	187.5	154.6	1602.6
LTA	166.4	146.6	129.0	98.0	99.2	93.5	111.6	133.0	131.8	153.9	180.9	190.7	1634.6

Mean temperature in degrees Celsius for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2025	6.0	7.1	8.4										7.0
2024	6.1	7.9	7.9	9.9	13.1	12.9	14.9	14.9	13.6	11.8	9.2	8.2	10.9
2023	6.6	8.0	7.6	9.9	13.3	17.4	14.9	15.8	15.2	11.9	8.7	7.9	11.4
2022	7.2	7.1	8.0	9.9	12.6	13.8	15.9	16.2	n/a	12.2	9.4	5.2	10.7
LTA	6.3	6.4	7.5	9.5	12.0	14.2	15.5	15.5	13.8	11.1	8.5	6.7

Replacing Albariño with Rondo

Albariño vines planted in 2019 - no roots!

This week, we gave up on the Albariño. Alex started digging it up yesterday and finished today. The plants had very little in the way of root systems, clearly far less than we would have expected after three years in the ground. I potted up four that appeared alive and put them in the greenhouse. We'll see if they wake up. 

We wonder if the issue was our land/conditions or the rootstock (labelled SO4) chosen for this Albariño. Alex has propagated the Ross House vine, which had survived here for at least 100 years, as a potential rootstock for the Albariño vines he rescued. Another experiment: we'll plant some in the polytunnel as is and we'll transplant some onto Ross House vine roots. 

He dug up the remainder while I started planting the Rondo. We sourced the Rondo vines (25) from Thomas Walk. The soil was surprisingly nice and crumbly. Surprising ourselves, we finished up this afternoon. Job done. Now, the only issue is that we have no rain scheduled for the next week, and the vineyard does not have water, so we wait and see. At least the vines are in the ground and the ground is moist.

We had visitors again today. Dan Walsh and his son Eoghan, whom we know from American Yacht Club in Rye NY, stopped by while touring Ireland. It was very nice to reconnect and show them around the place.  

Vines dug up

Vines going in.

Pitiful roots after 6 years in the ground

Albariño potted in the polytunnel

No development in the vineyard

It's been so warm and sunny the last three days that I was worried that the grapevines would start bud development. They have not, thank goodness. The vines in the polytunnel are very much a work in progress. The little Ross house vine has a leaf forming and the other vine is contemplating bud break. As it is to turn cold tomorrow, I hope the survive okay. 

Ross House vine, probably Black Hamburg

Vanessa bud

A pear bud bursting