Conducting research

I'd been reading The Vineyard at the End of the World, by Ian Mount, and learning a lot about what not to do with vines and grapes and winemaking. It's a fascinating story about the Mendoza region of Argentina. But even more fascinating is the wine that resulted...Argentinian Malbec. I have already posted about this book before.

For centuries, Argentine wine was famously unpalatable — ­oxidized and drinkable only by Argentinians who were used to the potent grape juice. The Vineyard at the End of the World tells the often tedious four-hundred-year history of how a wine producing region arose in the high Andean desert.

Inspired by the success of California wines, a couple of maverick enologists decided to reproduce the success of the Americans by planting and creating Argentinian cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay. They wisely decided that to play on the world stage you have to produce what they value first. After all, if their Californian and Chilean neighbours were being taken seriously, why couldn't they?

Microscopic grapes and progress in vines

Starting to look like a mini vineyard

I was tying up the vines, some of which have reached the top wire this year, when I noticed one vine choking it's grapes. The tendrils of one branch had curled around the babies and closed so tight they weren't able to breath. Naturally, I liberated the babies and tied up the vine, using bits of 'nylon' stockings as the ties. They work so well. They stretch forever and don't hurt a thing.

The Vineyard on the Wild Atlantic Way

I am reading an interesting book called Vineyard at the End of the World by Ian Mount. Although it's a bit too detailed in the minutia of history, I am learning a lot about how not to make wine.

What I am learning most of all are some of the mistakes and tricks that lead to a successful vintage. Like you need to have a dry spell at the end of the ripening period just before harvest to concentrate the flavours in the grapes. Dilution with water, which is what was happening in Argentina as the grapes were sold to vintners by weight so they watered them to increase yield, causes bad things to happen chemically. It is also important to reduce the yield by limiting the number of shoots and clusters so that all the effort goes into the remaining grapes. That's going to be a hard lesson to learn.

Sudden growth spurt

Our weather was warm and dry in May and early June, then shifted to wet and cool for late June, and is now wet and warm in early July. It's creating interesting growth patterns in our gardens.

Our strawberries stopped blooming and producing very early, our gooseberries were sparse and small compared with last year, the blueberries are doing much better than last year, and our fruit trees seem to be ready to produce, some for the first time. We have loads of raspberries, which we adore. Every year seems a bit different. I would hate to be a farmer in these times.

From Ireland to NJ

Here we were visiting our old stomping grounds in southern New Jersey and were most pleased to learn that scores of vineyards had popped up all over the sandy reaches of the southern shore. We were staying at the Southern Mansion and decided to visit Cape May Vineyards. A relatively recent vineyard by French standards, it's a small place, impeccably detailed for tours.

The main building where the shop and tastings are done also has local products that complement wines, like bottle stoppers, glasses, Chesapeake Bay spiced peanuts, and lots of stuff with great quotes about wine.

Wacky weather - dry and hot!

We have had the most extraordinary weather throughout the month of May and now well into June that we have ever experienced here in Ireland. The figures for Newport show a very low figure for rainfall for Newport, the closest town to our location. There were at least two weeks straight with no rainfall at all. Extraordinary. We were watering the vegetable and flower gardens but not the vineyard. Grape vines are supposed to like dry and hot.

Cool climate and clay soil = Chablis?

The truth, I have learned, is that cool/cold areas are best suited for white wine production for a variety of reasons. Whites generally ripen earlier, and they are more forgiving, flexible and adaptable. It is easier to make a good wine from a wider range of maturity than reds. So cool regions that have shorter seasons may still produce acceptable and even excellent white wines. That is not so true of red wines.  Red grapes need a long season of hot weather to mature to just the right sweetness.