Gorgeous weather

We've had several days of brilliant sunshine, blue skies and warm dry weather. After all the storms, Lord knows, we deserve it. So gardening was the obvious option deserving attention as we've not had much of a chance to do a lot outdoors this winter. Lots of weeding, lots of pruning in the orchard and of the trees. 

Today, I checked on the vineyard. All fine and still dormant, thank goodness, as so much is waking up early. It looks like all the vines are okay although one may have drowned.  

My sign is on its last days but Alex got me a nice new one - printed on plastic not painted on wood. The first one lasted for almost six years. I'll have to save the remnants as a museum item. 

We had another inquiry from someone as crazy as we are who is planning a vineyard in Cork. That's the second one this winter, and I think we're not the only ones. This is getting exciting. 

The grass is growing and the vineyard guard cats are hard at work ensuring the absence of Rodentia. It's sunny and everyone is happy, pandemic be damned. 

February had far less rainfall than last year but a little bit higher than the mean for recent years. It certainly felt like we had more rainfall than that, especially when it was coming down in buckets. 

MONTHLY VALUES FOR NEWPORT UP TO 28-FEB-2021

Total rainfall in millimetres for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	225.6	147.5	n/a										373.1
2020	139.5	342.8	178.2	25.5	54.7	164.5	187.9	137.9	153.4	228.0	206.6	232.7	2051.7
2019	146.8	115.0	228.5	100.7	112.5	76.6	82.7	228.9	175.5	160.7	148.1	220.6	1796.6
2018	274.6	155.6	86.2	94.3	70.4	65.9	58.6	179.1	148.3	140.9	172.6	201.0	1647.5
mean	166.7	126.5	141.2	96.8	94.7	89.7	100.9	132.5	131.5	176.0	170.4	180.2	1607.1

Mean temperature in degrees Celsius for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	5.0	6.7	n/a										5.8
2020	7.2	6.0	6.6	11.0	12.8	13.8	14.4	16.0	13.8	10.5	9.1	6.1	10.6
2019	6.9	8.4	7.9	10.2	11.7	13.1	16.3	15.5	13.7	10.3	7.1	7.1	10.7
2018	5.9	4.6	5.5	9.1	13.1	16.1	16.1	15.0	12.4	10.9	8.3	8.1	10.5
mean	6.1	6.1	7.3	9.0	11.5	13.8	15.4	15.4	13.5	10.8	8.3	6.5	10.3

Mean 10cm soil temperature for NEWPORT at 0900 UTC

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	3.6	5.0	n/a										4.3
2020	5.7	4.7	5.4	9.7	13.0	14.8	14.9	16.3	13.7	9.5	8.0	5.1	10.1
2019	6.1	6.1	6.8	8.9	12.2	13.8	16.7	15.7	13.5	9.4	6.2	5.6	10.1
2018	4.4	2.9	4.0	8.2	13.1	17.4	18.4	15.1	12.1	9.6	6.6	6.6	9.9
mean	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Global Solar Radiation in Joules/cm² for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	6620	13347	n/a										19967
2020	6263	10808	24545	46192	58476	43537	40215	40555	25558	18487	6319	5209	326164
2019	5378	10595	21306	37648	49884	49607	45395	37116	26460	17406	8167	4766	313728
2018	5976	13390	25269	34709	58446	59849	51448	34923	22619	17123	7842	4068	335662
mean	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Potential Evapotranspiration (mm) for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	7.6	22.9	n/a										30.5
2020	17.6	21.9	35.0	70.2	91.6	72.9	66.2	66.4	42.7	28.1	13.6	10.4	536.6
2019	13.4	21.5	35.4	60.4	79.0	78.2	79.5	62.9	42.8	29.2	14.8	14.3	531.4
2018	16.3	21.8	35.7	52.0	88.2	102.4	87.2	58.7	37.9	30.2	18.0	11.5	559.9
mean	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

Evaporation (mm) for NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2021	10.9	32.1	n/a										43.0
2020	22.4	31.9	51.8	98.9	130.8	104.8	94.3	92.7	59.1	38.8	18.1	13.6	757.2
2019	17.7	29.5	52.0	87.3	111.6	112.8	109.6	88.8	59.9	39.6	18.9	17.9	745.6
2018	21.9	30.2	51.7	76.4	127.4	140.4	120.7	82.2	53.1	40.6	22.8	14.9	782.3
mean	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a

DEGREE DAYS BELOW 15.5 DEGREE CELSIUS FOR NEWPORT

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Total
2021	325	247	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
2020	257	276	275	143	111	73	55	31	71	156	193	291	1935
2019	266	200	235	165	130	89	27	36	67	164	251	262	1892
2018	298	306	309	194	104	50	31	44	100	147	215	230	2027

---

Notes on the Data

Evaporation and PE data are calculated using Penman/Monteith formulae.
All means are for the period 1981-2010. Data updated daily at Mid-day.

Retirement Vineyard

 

I had forgotten that Picard had a vineyard upon retirement - Chateau Picard. Somehow, I discovered the Star Wars fan site last week. There I discovered a treasure trove of facts, merchandise and episodes to satisfy the greatest fanatic. I also discovered that Admiral Picard has got quite a merchandise collection as the StarTrek.com website reveals. 

In January 2020, the actual location and identity of Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s vineyard in the latest Star Trek series, Star Trek Picard, was revealed and it is not in Burgundy as was suggested in the trailers. It is in California. Supposedly, the series takes place in Burgundy, where former Starfleet officer Jean-Luc Picard (played by Patrick Stewart) has retired to his family domain.

The vineyard is in fact Sunstone in the Santa Ynez Valley. Although meant to be located in La Barre, viewers may have twigged that the vine training and low-density plantings looked rather more Californian than French and it is indeed the case. The villa is an authentic-looking French château within driving distance of LA and includes architectural features and materials from the south of France. Most of the inside scenes were filmed either in studio or in another home in LA.

There are two other iterations of Chateau Picard. There is a real Château Picard located in Saint-Estèphe in Bordeaux. And I spotted ‘official’ Star Trek: Picard wines, the result of a collaboration between the producers of Star Trek and the château-owners, Mähler-Besse. 

Alas, despite growing up on the estate, being a vintner did not really suit the former Star Fleet Admiral. 

"I tried my best to belong to this place, but I don't think I ever truly felt at home here."

– Jean-Luc Picard regarding Château Picard, 2399 ("The End is the Beginning")

And just for fun, here is a Star Wars timeline infographic. 

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.