Climbing high for climate change

The new vineyard in Sant Sebastià dels Gorgs, Spain. Credit: Gemma Sànchez

An interesting article in Decanter profiles a vine nursery in Spain that is growing grape varietals grafted onto tall rootstock vines to elevate them high off the ground. It looks to like they form palm-tree-like tall vines. The article also talks about the overhead trellises used in Galicia. 

They claim that the roots of any vine top out at 37 cm. This newly planted unique vineyard has trunks at 80cm in height. They claim many benefits including: ‘…better resistance to drought, faster forming of the vines in trellises, keeping fruit away from animals that would eat it, not needing trunk protectors when cleaning up vegetative growth and eliminating excess secondary shoots.’

In earlier experiments, they found that height did indeed make a difference with 90cm vines pushing out maturation by four days over those at 60cm. They also have lower planting density. We've done all this by instinct. How curious! 

I would think that taller vines would lead to deeper roots and less need for water, more resilience to drought. As they have just planted the vineyard in 2022, it will be a few years before we see the real results in yield and quality. We'll have to see. 

Fire damage to ancient vines in Crete

Devastation in Crete

Pre-phylloxera vines that were not grafted onto American rootstock were severely damaged in a tragic fire that raged across the island of Crete last week. About 300 vines were burnt in an area that four decades ago had more than 700 acres of old vines, most of which were destroyed by wildfires over the last 20 years, resulting in the abandonment of viticulture and wine production in the area.

Young winemaker Iliana Malihin decided to rescue the remaining vines in 2019. She invested her own money in facilities and convinced growers in the region to bring her their grapes. She created five wine labels to acclaim, and now everything is gone, including the homes of many of the people. 

Iliana was also working to get UNESCO support for the ungrafted vines as world heritage. She has set up a crowdfunding campaign to rebuild the winery; she has high hopes that, because the vines were not irrigated, they have extremely deep roots that may recover. They are starting to see signs of leafing already. But it will take 5 years of tending without revenue to recover. 

The question is do ungrafted vines change the taste of the grapes and the wine? It's a question Decanter undertook to answer but I do not yet have a subscription so I couldn't access the full article. You would think that different roots would contribute to the expression of the terroir. But the 'experts' don't all agree. Some say that because rootstock can affect the vigor, yield, and elemental uptake from the soil, the taste should vary. Others say you wouldn't really notice the difference. 

Instead, they say to select the rootstock to the quality of the soil. I think the only rootstock supplied to us was SO4, so we don't have much choice. But we have stuck sections of vine in the ground where vines have died and they are growing. So perhaps we will see. 

A vine reaches 'adulthood' at around seven or eight years of age. A 'mature' grapevine is said to be anywhere from 12–25 years old. 'Old vines' are usually more than 25 years old. The oldest vine in the world is reputed to be in Slovenia and is almost 500 years old and still producing grapes. Do old vines make a difference?  I don't think we will find out in our lifetimes. 

Then there is the POV that own-root vines are important because the winemakers cultivating them think so. If they think the vines are special, then they will make the effort to make the wines special. I like that idea. 

We are not irrigating to get our vines' roots to grow deep in search of water and unique terroir. Maybe that will be their salvation one day.