Rain!

End poles are braced

The heatwave finally broke a couple of days ago and we had three partial days of rain. This morning it was coming down in buckets. You can feel the earth sigh with relief. With the earth a bit softer again, Alex was able to install the braces for the end poles and cement them in. 

We lost two vines to the heat and drought, both Chardonnay. I will root cuttings from the five year old vines. It seems that just sticking them in the ground works just fine. Forget about rootstock. The other vines have suffered a bit -- a few shrivelled leaves here and there -- but overall not too bad. I'm just glad we didn't have the conditions they had on the continent. Horrible sudden storms, over 220 kph winds, destructive hail, and torrential rain tore from Spain across the Med and into Italy and Austria. The rest of the continent is suffering from drought and heat -- the Danube is down 5 feet, Lake Como is unrecognizable. Many crops were destroyed by either drought or storms. It is feeling apocalyptic. 

Meanwhile, our grapes are now increasing in size and the Rondo continues to turn red. The Pinot Noir are still tiny and fuzzy, I'm not certain what that means. I hope it's not fungus, but the dry weather would indicate not. The Chardonnay have a few clusters, so we will mix whites this year. The Solaris are coming along but not in huge quantities as expected. All in all, it's pretty remarkable. 

I told our story to a woman from Harvard named Sinéad O'Connor, who comes home to Ireland and writes for The Currency. She is writing about the vineyards in Ireland. She heard about us from Colm McCan who teaches about wine at the Ballymaloe cookery school and has a small vineyard in East Cork close to Cloyne. The word is getting out. I guess now we need to start making serious wine. 

View over what looks like a vineyard now

View from the new picnic platform

Dead Chardonnay vine

Sun dappled leaves

View from the East

Monkey puzzle log bee hive

Rondo looking good

2 yo Pinot Noir vines bearing fruit

Chardonnay - very small

7 yo Solaris

4 yo Solaris - drought damage to leaves

More Rondo - veraison has begun!

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. 

Heat wave - again!

It's Monday the 15th and the heat wave has finally broken. It was hot, dry and still. We had at least 5 days (more I think) in the high 20s and on Thursday, the thermometer in my car read 30C as I drove home from Old Head and Louisburg. I had lunch at Tia by the Sea and walked the beach at Old Head. I was very glad to have air conditioning in my car. The heat broke the old record high when it topped 37.5C in Carlow. That's hot. 

Newport Furnace registered a high of 28.5C for the week on Friday. It was scorching. Everyone says now that it's climate change but Alex remembers summers like this in the '70s when he had to ferry jerry cans of water to the islands for the cattle. We've had no rain for ages and the grapevines are parched and getting burnt by the sun. 

The Rondo is already starting to turn colour. That would make it a very early veraison. We have quite a few Pinot Noir vines producing clusters so that's very interesting. Many vines have already reached their max height. We may have a taste of Chardonnay. We'll have very little Solaris, the grape we planted the most of. 

The work on the main structure of the trellis is done and now you can actually see the trellis from the road. Alex still has to put the wires in, but that he can do over the winter. No rush to do it now as we will just be pruning the vines all back to the main trunk. It really does look like a vineyard. 

Cahill did a lovely job and even levelled out a seating area in the top corner. It will be excellent for wine tastings someday if we make it that far. 

Ghostie christening the picnic spot

Telephone poles and steel cross beams are in

Land above cleared and leveled for safety

Now we need the support wires

It's looking like a vineyard

Looking toward the picnic spot

Lovely views

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir suffering in heat

Rondo starting veraison

Rondo turning red

The cradle of winemaking

Alex and I have speculated that there must be ancient vines in Ireland because we did have early Christians here for a long time. As wine was central to their rituals, the monks must have brought along vines to plant so they could reproduce the blood of Christ. We've asked Seedsavers if they are aware, and they do apparently have some vines grown from ancient vines near monastic ruins. We'll have to visit them. 

I also had been wondering where the culture of winemaking first started. I knew that ancient Egyptians made wine and beer and cultivated the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. But were they the first? Perhaps the Mesopotamians were the geniuses that created the elixir of the gods? But today, I saw an article about how the fall of the Soviet Union changed wine forever and I was drawn to investigate. 

It turns out that Ukraine's neighbour, Georgia was known to be cultivating grapes and making wine 8000 years ago. Archaeologists actually uncovered a vessel that was used to store wine and dated it to 6000 BCE. That's 2000 years before the Ceide Fields in Ireland were populated by farming peoples. Georgians claim that their region is the cradle of winemaking, and that could put Ukrainians on equal footing. 

Stalin essentially destroyed the winemaking tradition during the Soviet era, forcing farmers to join collectives that focused on cheap food production of mediocre quality, not like that of their winemaking expertise. Wine was considered elite, a drink for the royalty not the proletariat. Yet somehow, people managed to preserve some of the techniques and after the fall of the Soviet Union, restored the remaining vineyards for a new era.  I'll need to research their methods in greater detail as they must have farmed organically. 

We've had Bulgarian wines at our favourite restaurant in Westport, Sage. And they are top quality so I am now eager to sample more wines from the countries of the former Eastern bloc. Let the adventure begin. 

Poles are in

It looks like we have planted a field full of telephone poles, which will serve as the uprights in our trellis arrangement for the vineyard. The vines are doing well and it is encouraging that we have not only Rondo but also a few Chardonnay and Pinot Noir clusters. The Pinot Noir is surprising as this is only their third season. The Albarino aren't even considering it yet. And the Solaris is seriously disappointing again. 

I am concerned about this week's heat wave and lack of rain. An entire week of near 25C temperatures and no rain. That could put a serious damper on grape development. Although the heat might help and there is water below the surface as we saw in the holes that were dug. Fingers crossed. 

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir 

Chardonnay

Chardonnay

Rondo

Rondo

Solaris

Erecting telephone pole uprights

What the entire vineyard will look like eventually. 

Progress toward trellises

 

Poles waiting to go in. 

Holes are dug, the top of the field is levelled, the gorse has been pushed back, and the poles are ready to go in. Two of the holes are filling with water. Small wonder after the heavy rain we had several days ago. But they are not where I expected them. I expected them mid-field in the area where we lost several Solaris and Chardonnay vines, we thought due to water pooling. Perhaps we have hit a spring?

Anyway, it's really exciting to have the wild concept vineyard turn into the real deal. 

Spacing of holes.

Levelling the slope for safety.

Chardonnay and Solaris vines looking righteous!

It's quite the view over our lttle vineyard.

Poles all laid out for Ghostie to inspect. 

Very neatly drilled. 

Inspector Ghost.

Water in the hole!

Tensioner pole for the first section. 

Our (Ghost's) new millstone table.