Oregon on fire

Who would have thought that cool Oregon would be growing Albariño at the Fault Line Vineyards in the Umpqua Valley American Viticultural Area?  But this year, the heating degree units may be almost 30% higher than normal and that may be too warm for the grapes. Not only is it hot, but it also is dry this year. And they are looking at yet another record-making heatwave. 

The weather across the US remains unsettled and unusual. It does not appear to be a good time to be involved in agriculture in many areas of the world. 

Best in the West

 

I always love when Met Eireann, our weather forecaster, ends the forecast with 'Best in the West'.  We used to never hear that phrase. Now it's quite common. We're having a week of sunny warm and calm weather. Warmest in the west -- 20C by day, down to about 5C overnight. Everything has come alive. The fruit orchard is in full bloom except for the apples. The vines are leafing in the vineyard and Alex mowed yesterday. The trees have leafed. It's delightful. 

I took a chance and started planting a few things out -- broccoli, courgettes. bush beans. I have many extra plants so I didn't feel that it threatened my supply. My beetroot has germinated, the radishes are already ready to eat and the spinach has really come on strong in the cold frames. The peas have not come up yet but I expect they'll pop out shortly. The Swiss chard is sown. Having poor germination of lettuce this year. Will try a different variety. 

I fed the roses and ericaceous loving shrubs. Washed the car. Pulled weeds. Watered the greenhouse and the vegetable gardens. The new polytunnel arrives Saturday. I generally enjoyed the day. Looking forward to the week. Have almost forgotten about the coronavirus pandemic. 

Tidy up

Rondo leafing

Crabapple

Cherry

Pear

Apple

Strawberry

Blueberry

A turn in the weather

After several really gorgeous days where we putzed around the garden, weeding, planting seeds, adding nutrients and pruning judiciously, we are now in for 7 days of rain and wind - lots of both. At least we should get a lot of work done, like our taxes. 

Finished pruning

 

We finished up the pruning and staking of the vines in two days. Alex did the older vines and I did all the rest. My take on how the vines are doing is that the Solaris are delivering mixed results - some vines are very vigorous and others are weak. I don't know if this is normal, or if some are being subjected to conditions they don't tolerate well, like drowning in areas of poor drainage. The Chardonnay vines are also mixed -- some doing well, others weak and one possibly dead. The Pinot are doing surprisingly well and the Albarino surprisingly poorly. I would have expected the opposite. 

Our weather has been alternating between beautiful but cold, and horrible but warm. As tomorrow is the last day of January, I'll look at the weather stats for January next week. Let's now look at 2020 as a year, a horrible pandemic coronavirus year that ended with horrible US election angst. At least now things have settled down in that latter corner and vaccines have arrived. 

The December climate report shows the month was cooler, wetter and windier than average. And our area had significant outliers:

• Highest daily rainfall: 27.5 mm at Newport, Co Mayo (15% of its monthly LTA) on Sun 13th
• Lowest mean monthly temperature: 4.3°C at Knock Airport, Co Mayo (at its LTA) (its coldest December since 2010)
• Lowest monthly total sunshine: 31.2 hrs (daily mean 1.01 hrs/day) at Belmullet*, Co Mayo 

Overall, 2020 gave us above average rainfall, temperatures and sunshine as a nation, but that was mainly in the south and east. Our area again showed outliers:

• Highest annual total rainfall: 2051.7 mm at Newport, Co Mayo (128% of its LTA)
• Lowest mean annual temperature: 8.9°C at Knock Airport, Co Mayo (0.4 above its LTA) 
• Highest air temperature: 27.1°C at Newport, Co Mayo on Mon 1st June 
• Lowest annual total sunshine: 1252.0 hrs (daily mean 3.42 hrs/day) at Belmullet*, Co Mayo

*Sunshine data is from the Autosol Network. LTAs for these sites are currently not used for comparison purposes.  

We also endured eight named storms and five months with storm force winds recorded. What this means for viticulture only time will tell. At least now we have our horticultural food and research (HFR) number. The research is well underway. 

Pruning time again

 

We've had a hard frost the last few days and beautiful sunny weather so it was time to start pruning the vines. I cleared the grass and staked two rows of three-year-old vines while pruning them. It was the first major pruning for these vines. A row of chardonnay is not doing terribly well. I think some of the vines are in a dip or flat area of the field and they may be drowning. The white Solaris vines are looking good for the most part and are approaching the point where the height of the main trunk has reached the top of the stick. There has been some wind damage to loose vines being whipped by wind and breaking. I corrected most of that. 

We've applied for farm status and an agricultural grant for farm equipment. Alex will be buying more metal poles and stringing wires in the 3-year-old area over winter. If the grant comes through, we'll be buying an ATV-like vehicle with mower attachment and trailer to mow and carry supplies and harvest. 

We couldn't get a shed without planning permission so we've delayed that. We're thinking about erecting a small greenhouse to house the equipment. That would be helpful as we've run out of room elsewhere. 

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

The geography of wine

The first book I decided to read was called The Geography of Wine: How Landscapes, Cultures, Terroir, and the Weather Make a Good Drop by Brian J. Sommers. I learned a lot about terroir and even more about geography. Who knew geography was so complex. No longer just about maps and capitals and oceans and continents, it's all about the composition of the earth, the topography and how it influenced trade and commerce and human development. It's about transport and evolution of housing and farming. I learned more by reading that book than I have learned in a long time.

I really like that book.There was a lot of repetition, but repetition improves memory so I can't fault the author too much. It explains how different regions evolved different methodology and resulted in very different wines for specific reasons tied to those regions. For example, the great houses of Bordeaux had access to easy transport via rivers to big cities where the markets existed.  So they developed their own vineyards that produced their own varietal vintage wines in huge estates.

In Burgundy, the wine had to be transported over land which was costly and the wine didn't travel well. So they pooled their resources with other grape growers to increase yield from which they made blended wines that traveled better and could be transported more economically in larger volumes. They also got together and built a canal to further reduce costs.

What I also learned was that grapes don't like rich soils. They like long dry summers and south facing hillsides. Grapes also grow enormously deep roots which help them find water in more arid places. But this was a development based on their need to grow very tall to reach sunlight above the canopy of forest. To grow that tall, they had to have deep roots to anchor them and tendrils to support the vines and the heavy fruit as it developed.

Grapevines basically take their nutrients from the rocks in the soil as they break down. They like rocky awful soil. That's why you see them in crevices of mountains like high in the Alps. They also like a lot of sunlight on south facing slopes near the sea.

South facing, sloping land, poor soil, near the sea. Check. Okay. So we got lucky again.

Grapes also tend to have a temperature band that they like. They basically don't like extremes.  They hate it when it gets too hot in summer and they can't tolerate extreme cold in winter.  But they do need a change of seasons.  They need to rest during a mild winter and produce over a long summer. Okay, so we don't have extremes. That part is good, but will it get warm enough for long enough and stay dry enough over the summer? That remains to be seen.

Okay, so just remember. This is an experiment and another great adventure which has just begun. Let it continue in earnest.

By the way. There is another book by the same title. I am not likely to read that one at that price.

The Geography of Wine:Regions, Terroir and Techniques
Editors: Dougherty, Percy H. (Ed.) $159 hard cover or soft cover $119 for the ebook