The patron saints of wine

St Vincent, patron saint of winemakers

Throughout mankind’s early history various civilizations sought to personify the world around them and the food and drink it provided. Wine, beer, grapes and grain, as fruits of the land, were usually represented as deities connected to fertility or pleasure – the ancient gods of lore. 

But with the rise of Christianity, those gods were replaced with reverence for the men that took up the roles of transforming those fruits of the land into riches of the church. That gave rise to an extraordinary number of patron saints of all aspects of wine production from growing the grapes to making the barrels. Moreover, it reveals that the church’s attachment to the drinks industry is deeper than just Dom Pérignon’s “invention” of Champagne. After all, Communion involves both bread and wine. It also attests to the longevity and importance of the trade as part of Europe’s cultural and religious history.

Perhaps the single most important feast day is January 22 -- Saint Vincent's Day. The Feast of Saint Vincent of Saragossa, the official patron saint of winemakers, is celebrated every year on January 22nd the mid-point in the vine’s growing cycle in the northern hemisphere. This dormant period is situated in between pruning and when the vines begin to bud break and flower. Vin, of course, is the word for wine in French. Saint Vincent died a martyr in 304 AD. 

Not surprisingly, there are many other saints of wine. 

• St. Trifon Zarezan, or St. Trifon the Pruner is the Bulgarian patron saint of vine growers and winemakers.  His day is February 14th. He is known as the pruner because after his donkey nibbled some vines, they were found to be more productive. And so pruning the vines was introduced. 
• Saint Morand is revered particularly throughout the Alsace, Burgundy and Champagne regions of France, and also the Rhine region of Germany. His day is celebrated on June 3rd.
• St. Armand of Maastricht is the patron saint of vine growers and vintners, as well as of brewers, innkeepers and bartenders. For some reason, he’s also the Patron of the Boy Scouts! His feast is on February 6th. 
• Saint Urban of Langres (327 – c. 390) is the patron saint of Dijon (in the Northern Burgundy wine region of France) and also of vine-growers, vine-dressers, gardeners, vintners, and coopers. He is also particularly popular with German winemakers. He was active in the fight against alcoholism. His feast day is 23 January in Langres but 2 April elsewhere. There is a German proverb that says “Ist Sonnenschein am Urbanstag / gedeiht der Wein nach alter Sag” which translates to “If there is sunshine on St. Urban’s Day/ the wine thrives afterwards they say.”

Ireland was a centre of monastic settlement and education. Monks were schooled in farming and cultivation alongside reading, writing, scripture and penmanship. Some of them travelled to Europe and established vineyards. Some of the most successful even ended up as saints! 

• St Fiachra, the patron saint of gardeners, honed his skills in the vineyards of France. He was born in Connaught in the 7th C. Saint Fiacre is the patron saint of the commune of Saint-Fiacre, Seine-et-Marne, France. He is the patron of growers of vegetables and medicinal plants, and gardeners in general, including ploughboys. He died c 670 AD. 
• St Kilian (c 640- c 689) planted vineyards in the Main Valley in Germany where he is the patron saint of winegrowers. There is an annual festival in Würzburg, the capital of Franconia, the northernmost corner of Bavaria, which celebrates German-Irish connections in July. 
• Fridolin of Säckingen is the patron saint of Alsace and established the wine industry in Switzerland. His feast day is March 6.

Here's how they celebrate in Champagne. Very civilised. 

Pruning, staking and tying

Dyna-Living Vineyard Tying Tool  

We have been working away at pruning the vines, staking those with broken supports, and tying the primaries onto the stakes. Alex bought me a cool concept machine to use for tying. It sounds impressive and promises a lot, but it leaves much to be desired. It takes an engineering degree to figure out how to load it. It works like it's supposed to about 50% of the time, leaving you frustrated and wasting plastic tape and staples. 

I finally finished today but ended up hand-tying quite a few that the machine just couldn't get around or when I just couldn't get it to work properly. I'm sure part of it is practice, but many times either the machine didn't grab the tape properly or it didn't staple but cut the tape.  Anyway, it's now done. And we have amazing weather for the next week. 

What's most amazing is that in January we still have a rose blooming in the vineyard!

Divico - a new hardy red grape variety

Divico - the Swiss cross of Gamaret and Bronner © Dr Joachim Schmid/Agroscope/Plant Grape

Our nephew alerted us to a National Geographic article about a newly engineered grape varietal called Divico. It was created in Switzerland to be a cold-resistant and disease-free vine.  Divico was named after the leader of a Celtic or Gallic tribe who led his people into battle against Julius Caesar – and now it is the name of the latest grape variety to emerge from the laboratory. So it seems logical to investigate this grape for adaptation potential in our environs. 

Divico is a red grape variety created in 1996 at the Agroscope Research Centre in Pully (in the Lavaux wine region of the canton of Vaud, Switzerland). It was further developed in a Swiss government-sponsored laboratory and released in 2013. Formerly known as IRAC 2091, Divico is a cross of two other obscure hybrids: Gamaret and Bronner. Gamaret, itself a Swiss cross of Gamay and Reichensteiner, is “valued for its early ripening and resistance to rot”. The white Bronner has good resistance to both mildews and botrytis but results in a rather 'neutral' wine. Divico has an upright habit and is easy to train. 

The resultant Divico is said to produce a deep-coloured red wine with good aromatics and a prominent tannin profile. It buds early, flowers in early June (avoiding frost damage) and ripens late. The variety has disease resistance to downy mildew (Plasmopara viticola), powdery mildew (Erysiphe necator) and grey rot (Botrytis cinerea). It is an average cropper, so it doesn't require thinning. It only became available commercially from wine nurseries in 2015 and is planted mostly in Switzerland. 

The hope is that Divico will eliminate the need for any pesticides. That feeds right into the organic and sustainable wine movements. Divona, a new white variety, has similar resistance properties. Divona was introduced to the world in October of 2018. 

I had not realised that very little red wine is produced in the UK -- only 5% of the total is red. (I'm really glad we didn't plant more Rondo). In fact, 70% of their wine production is sparkling whites. They've tested Pinot Noir but wines made in England from Pinot grapes lack colour and depth. 

A consortium of six UK vintners has been sponsoring trials by a horticultural research organisation called NIAB EMR. They've planted the first research vineyard at East Malling headed up by Dr. Julien Lecourt (julien.lecourt@emr.ac.uk). They have secured funding to establish a Wine Innovation Centre. They have also established a research winery and among the first wines to be produced was Divico with which they'd been working for three years. So in 2019, year 3, they got their first decent harvest. Not bad. 

It's too early to start planting Divico grapes. Some vintners have produced reasonably good wines from them, but others seem to have fallen short. Perhaps as one wine critic has speculated, it will take some time and we should let the wine age before testing it. 

Sources of Divico:

• https://www.winegrowers.info/vines/home.htm 
• https://www.victoriananursery.co.uk/Grape-Vine-Divico/ 

Major pruning completed today

Today, in the beautiful morning sunshine, I finished pruning the last row of Solaris grapes while Alex tied up the Pinot Noir. There is still a bit of editing to do, as I often leave a few options when I can't see the answer at the moment. Often, when I return a few days later, it will look quite different to me. So I tend not to rush things. 

It's looking quite good. The Solaris vines are sturdy and the 4yo vines have almost all reached the height of the overhead trellis's. The Chardonnay's are mostly weak though some have done very well. I don't know what the difference is. 

The Pinot Noir are surprisingly strong and I have recently been reading that they are the main choice of English vintners -- only a small percentage of red wine produced there is Rondo. I made the decision not to plant more Rondo based on its first-year performance, but since then the 5 we planted have been outperforming the Solaris. Go figure.

Anyway, it's looking good and we have piles of vines to clear away. 

Stalled fermentation

The wine after racking

The red wine (Rondo) had stopped bubbling so we assumed it had stopped fermentation. The sediment had settled nicely so we decided to rack it and naturally measured the Specific Gravity and Brix. Lo and behold, the SG was1.02 and the Brix reading was 14. Way too sweet for a dry wine, which was our objective. We tasted it and, although a lovely colour, aroma, and taste, definitely too sweet. 

So it was back to the book to determine what can stall fermentation. It turns out lots of things can stall fermentation. (p51 of First Steps in Winemaking lists at least 8 possible causes.) I didn't want to add sugar water as it was too sweet and I don't like the idea of diluting wine. One of the suggestions was to add more yeast. So I dissolved one level tsp of yeast nutrient in 1 cup of warm previously boiled water and added in one level tsp of brewer's yeast. I added one cup to each of the three gallon jugs of wine after racking. That topped off the container perfectly after racking and now one of the demijohns has already started bubbling. I am hopeful to complete the fermentation. 

1.02 SG

The white wine, which got the sugar water addition, is not doing much of anything. We might have to rack that again and do the same. 

Alex decanting wine left behind

The sediment

Natural beekeeping

Alex is practising natural beekeeping. He doesn't bother the bees all the time. He doesn't steal all their honey and feed them sugar water instead. He doesn't fumigate the hives or treat for varroa. His philosophy is to encourage the bees to stay on our land to pollinate our crops because they like it here.

I'm all for it. The bees collect honey from a range of plants that have different medicinal properties. If they get sick or unwell, they will choose the right honey to cure themselves. Feeding them sugar water affects their health. As does agitating them daily. Small wonder the bees are dying off. We take a small amount of honey as compensation for providing a great place to forage and leave the bees to take care of themselves. 

Last year, we had two swarms. One got away as they formed way up in a tree, and the second swarm he gave away because he didn't have a spare hive or a means to collect the swarm. We were such newbies then. Now we know what to do. 

Gate to stop people from going too near the hive.

We have a deep bucket to collect the swarm in. Alex is building natural log hives to populate with bees. Our bees are the native Irish black honeybees. They are much less aggressive than the commercial variety. We have re-wilded a meadow behind the house and planted loads of pollinator-friendly native trees, shrubs and wildflowers. The field has loads of clover, a Sally tree, lots of other trees including willow and flowering hawthorn as well as apple, cherry, plum, crabapple, pear, peach and soft fruit and berries, Fuschia hedging, and loads of wildflowers. The Sally tree was loudly abuzz with bees in the spring. All of this leads up to the vineyard which we hope the bees will frequent when the time comes. 

Bees in nature choose a dead tree that has a hollowed core to inhabit. They build their combs to fit the space. Alex's natural log hive is a hollowed-out monkey puzzle log. It will have a sloped roof and a tall stand to get it off the ground by about 2.5 metres. I can't wait to have a swarm. 

Hollowed out monkey puzzle log

Sloping roof cap, to be slated

Stand in the wildflower meadow

What a beautiful day!

It was a gorgeous day right from the start. Puffy clouds, gentle breeze, reflecting colours, cold and crisp but not unpleasant. Ghosty and I got to work mid-morning. First up -- the polytunnel.

Did some weeding and turning of the soil surface. Fed the plants with fulvic acid to strengthen their resistance to moulds. Checked on the progress of growth (lettuce seeds have sprouted and peas will soon be ready). Pulled a few dead plants. 

Then we had lunch and moved on to the vineyard. I made good progress on pruning the vines. Completed the long row of Solaris and finished the Chardonnay. Will probably need some edits when I review what I did as I tend to be a bit conservative the first time around. 

The only vines left to prune are the short row of Solaris and the Albarino, which really don;t need it yet. 

I was also tying things up and trying to use the new tool Alex gave me for Christmas but I just couldn't get it to work for me. 

The weather is going to turn bad tomorrow for the next few days, so I am glad I made progress today.