A bit behind schedule

Until this week, it's been decidedly cold and stormy so far this summer. We went straight from winter to summer, trading in coats and boots for shorts and sandals. Bizarre, but at least it's better than much of the rest of the world. Europe is having an intensely hot and dry week, England's canals and Italy's rivers are drying up, and the US is facing earlier and more intense wildfire seasons. 

Today's visible satellite image shows a country mostly bathed in sunshine, although we did have clouds passing overhead. Yesterday and today were quite warm in the sun, but the air is still cool under cloud cover. Last year, the buds started flowering around the 14th of July, which was pretty late. This year, they are not yet close to flowering, so again late. 

The good news is that the Albarino is coming on now, still very small compared with the Pinot Noir planted at the same time, but we've lost only four plants. I thought we had lost many more. I will be treating the vines with great care. I need to also tie some of the 5-yo Solaris up. 

Sadly we have lost a pear tree to disease in the orchard and may lose another. I am praying that whatever caused it has not spread to the other trees. It looks like we may have a good crop of apples this year, so may be pressing juice and/or cider. 

The contractor who is to install the telephone poles for the remainder of the vineyard has been stuck on another job but is supposed to come in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully, it won't be too disruptive or destructive. Alex managed to secure lots of telephone poles for the vineyard from the Eir work crews who are replacing poles in our area. That saved us a lot of money. The $ has reached parity with the € for the first time in decades, but the rate of inflation is a killer. Everything is skyrocketing in costs. I've bought a bistro set for the vineyard so at least we'll be able to sit there and watch the progress. 

Summers in America are getting hotter and lasting longer

 

An article in the NY Times showed that temperatures in America are 1.5 to 2.7 degrees higher now than they were in the '70s. Parts of the nation already have experienced punishingly high temperatures, extreme drought, wildfires, severe storms, flooding or some combination. This is no laughing matter. 

We spent two weeks cruising off the west coast of Ireland and were pinned by gales in one location for 4 days. That's not normal.We've concluded that holding events that are scheduled will not be possible in the future as climate weirdness is unpredictable. It's not just hotter, it's more unstable. 

Woe is us. It is certainly palpable. 

https://wapo.st/3OLp5fi

Freedom Blend Moldovan Wine

 

Stunning place I'd love to visit. 

Chateau Purcari Freedom Blend is a dry red wine from Stefan Voda District, Moldova. It is a blend of Bastardo, Saperavi and Rara Neagra with 14.0% abv. You'll like it if you like Malbec or a full-bodied Shiraz. 

"Freedom Blend is an expression of the free spirit, a courageous blend, full of character, from three indigenous grape varieties. It has the heart of Georgia, the terroir of Moldova, and the free spirit of Ukraine." I love that! For those of you who don't know, Putin marched into all three countries and took bits for Russia. This is hugely symbolic. I'd forgotten that Moldova uses Cyrillic some of the time. 

Moreover, the winery has turned all its space, including luxury accommodation and conference rooms into emergency housing for Ukrainians, making room for many people to shelter. I must buy lots of their wine and visit soon. The vineyard took top honours in 2020 the Decanter World Wine Awards. 

Other vineyards are doing the same in Ukraine and neighbouring countries. God bless Ukraine's friends. 

Bottling Day

Not Earth Day, not Oceans Day but Bottling Day. Today was the day we finally managed to bottle our wines from 2021. We had intended to bottle after six months but life and death both got in the way. 

The red has a beautiful colour and nose. A bit sharp on the tongue but not undrinkable. Let's hope it ages well from here on. 

The white has an interesting colour, sort of rose, and nose as well, but to me it tasted more like a dessert wine. Alex just thought it had a strange flavour. We only have 2.5 bottles of it so no great loss, but it's back to the drawing board. I think it is time to take a course in winemaking now that I know what questions to ask. 

The Brix reading was 14 for the white and 15 for the red.  That would make the alcohol content 2.8% for the white and 3% for the red if I am calculating it correctly. It's hard to remember how to do something when you only do it once per year. 

The specific gravity was 1.010 for the white and 1.020 for the red. Not nearly enough and the hygrometer indicated it was the finishing SG for beer in both cases! Oh my. I hope it does not spoil with too low an alcohol content. How did we get it right the first time? 

We got 18 bottles of red plus one for the remainder with dregs to settle out. It was six bottles plus a little extra for each of the three demijohns of red. 

Naturally, we made a mess in the pantry as I was doing the filling while Alex was watching the volume in the demijohns. At least now we have room in the pantry again. Next year, we should have a shed in which to work and store our winemaking equipment. That will make it more reasonable. 

English Wine & Food Festival

2022 Program will be available for download

English Wine Week is just around the corner. The vineyards of England have come on strong and are ready to showcase their product. Organised by the Thames & Chilterns Vineyards Association, at least a dozen vintners will be represented. A one-day ticket is just £6 and children enter free. 

If it's not already in your diary, English Wine Week runs from Saturday 18th to Sunday 26th June! There are lots of events planned including wine tastings, workshops, food stalls and local producers' exhibits, crafts as well as live music. To see what's on, visit the website. 

With two weekends and all the days in between, there are plenty of opportunities to get out to vineyards, not to mention the bars and restaurants that usually join in the fun, too. There will be specific events organised and vineyards that are open to the public will be delighted to welcome visitors that week.

... and finally Hampshire Fizz Festival will be on 24th of July at Black Chalk Wine.

The physics of champagne

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Champagne should be considered a mini-laboratory for the physics of fluids.” 

Physicist Robert Georges says that uncorking a champagne bottle produces supersonic shock waves. (New Scientist)

AIP Press release: Uncorking Champagne Produces Supersonic Shock Waves

Reference: AIP Physics of Fluids paper "Computational Fluid Dynamic simulation of the supersonic CO2 flow during champagne cork popping" Abdessamad Benidar,  Robert Georges, Vinayak Narayan Kulkarni, Daniel Cordier, and  Gérard Liger-Belair, Physics of Fluids (in press) (2022); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0089774

I am fascinated by what people choose to study. It stands to reason that French scientists would choose to study champagne corks popping. After all, it has its fringe benefits. I am certain they do not simply discard the champagne, n'est pas?

But the most fascinating aspect is that no one has studied the physics of a champagne cork popping  before. I heard a statistic that the most common injury in Britain is now eye damage caused by errant corks popping. A cork travels about 50 mph as it exits the bottle. That can cause a lot of damage, even permanent blindness. The average bottle of champagne holds 6.2 bar (about 90 psi) of pressure, about three times the pressure in a car tire and enough to propel the cork 42 feet, according to one study. You would have thought someone would have studied the entire sequence of holding a bottle of champagne to popping the cork, to injuries sustained, and finally to the art of drinking the bubbly. 

Apparently, the consumption of champagne has become very chic in GB, most likely as a result of their high degree of success in producing the bubbly in the UK. Indeed, consumption in GB has been steadily increasing. Traditionally, Americans have been less in favour of the bubbly while the French consumed it with abandon. While sales of champagne plummeted in France in 2020, the pandemic had the opposite effect in many other parts of the world, especially the US and Russia where sales of sparkling wines and other luxury goods skyrocketed. People were working from home and fueling their staycations with champagne and sushi. 

Well, here we have it. While some study the physical effects of champagne behaviour, fluid dynamics in our house consist of swallowing without choking. I guess we'll have to be careful with our wines. 

Beaurocraptic nonsense

A wreck sunk by a German U Boat during WW I off the coast of GB is found to have many bottles of fine French wines aboard. Except the salvage company who discovered the find cannot get permission to salvage the bottles, some worth potentially thousands each. What a load of rubbish. These guys are cleaning up the ocean floor and they are not given permission to remove the bottles?  

The story, however, brings me to a comment in the article that water happens to be the finest storage medium for wine bottles. Here we have our vineyard by the sea. Perhaps our perfect storage ground is right out there. Look out for those sea monsters, though.