What a difference a week makes

We arrived back in Ireland on the 28th of July having spent June and July on our boat sailing the Iberian peninsula from Galicia in Spain to the Algarve in Portugal and back. It was the sunniest, driest summer in Ireland while we were gone. There were days when the temperature reached 30 degrees we were told, and a drought had parched the land. Indeed, when we returned, Ireland had its first rainfall in months and the grass was brown and dry. The house sitter did not water in the vineyard. Naturally, it's been raining and cold since we returned, but that's another story.

The grapevines seemed to like the weather. They are fruiting profusely. Although the grapes are small, there are plenty of them for the first time since we planted the original vines five years ago. All of the new vines survived the drought without watering, too. Some even have grapes in their second year. They weren't told they weren't supposed to fruit yet.

Storm Hector tore through Ireland last night

The vicious storm brought winds of 90 km/hr, the highest tides in living memory, and left 35,000 without power. That means salt spray would have doused the vineyard. We're not there to survey the damage, but our neighbours have posted pictures of their leveled gardens. We shall see. In any case we shall rely on our superpowers to restore all.

Seen at a restaurant in Lisbon. 

With translation...

Flower buds have formed

After several days of warm weather following a solid rainfall, the vines have gone bananas developing clusters of tiny flowers. The bees have been busy in the orchard next door, so hopefully they'll move on to the vineyard next. How exciting. Now we're settling in for two months of watching and waiting and hoping. Our first crop perhaps?

What a difference a day makes

Well I went out to the vineyard after publishing my post this morning and contrary to my earlier report, every single one of the 4-yo red Rondo vines had leafed while the white Solaris still had only one leaf. It's a wonderful time of year.

Happy days

Sweet greens

Even the young vines have come alive

Sudden greening

Leafing!

The first leaves opening on the Solaris vines

Rondo getting close on the 8th May.

I've been going up into the vineyard and taking pictures of the buds daily for several weeks. When everything was flowering in the orchard, not a vine had yet leafed in the vineyard. Slowly, ever so slowly, I watched as the leaves unfurled in a most sluggish way. Then yesterday, after several days of sunshine, the first leaf appeared - it was the 8th of May and it was on the white grape vine. Seems very late. The ones on the Rondo reds was almost there, but the first leaf was definitely open on the Solaris white.

I walked the field and made note of how everything was doing. The four-year-old vines are robust with strong buds. The newly planted vines are of two natures: one is robust and bursting to leaf, the other is barely surviving. In fact it looks like four of the 50 Alex planted last year are dead.

The chardonnay's don't look great so far either. They have buds, but small ones and some canes are black and look dead. I'll give them a little time to wake up still, but it appears that my experiment has revealed their fate. The cold snap we had and the prolonged period of below normal temps has taken its toll. Climate change does not equate to global warming. Not yet, not here anyway. Maybe something unusual will happen and I'll be saying, "Hmm, that's funny." Those are usually the best words in science, and after all, this is all an experiment, though uncharacteristically unscientific for two ex-biologists.

On the 26th April they were this far along. 

Wine is good for you

Good reasons to start a vineyard....

Wake up!

More robust but still wound up tightly. 

Oh oh oh, almost. It's trying. 

Every day, I go to the vineyard to see if the vines have awoken yet. The weather has been uncooperative. Cooler and wetter than normal, and we even had a light ground frost this morning. Every day, the buds open ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly. The orchard is in bloom for the most part, the asparagus and rhubarb are harvestable, but the vines are still asleep. Any day now.

Until then, I continue digging up weeds, mostly ginormous docks roots, but a few other species as well, including prickly thistles. Every day, there are new ones adjacent to where I dug some out the day before. I feel like Sisyphus, only driven to cleanse the land. But I leave the dandelions to attract the pollinators and will be planting other Gaia-friendly companion species. And I watched a ladybird climb up a blade of grass and fly off into the sun. I just know that one day, I'll turn around and there it will be - the first leaf. Oh the joy of small pleasures.

Even the new plantings are straining.
Or are they restraining against the cold?

Still sleeping

The vines are still asleep. I've been digging up docks daily - two buckets full of roots is my limit per day before my back is irreparably damaged. But I am making progress. The ground is very soft and my new shovel makes the work manageable. Alex gave me a beautifully crafted Harmony shovel for my birthday. Some may have thought he was crazy, but my favourite shovel had cracked and this one is a delight -- if digging docks can be delightful. It's actually a kind of zen experience. Maybe a bit of OCD -- I have to dig up every one in the vineyard so they don't compete with the grapes for nutrients. Their root systems are so massive. (I have to remember to order soil test kits.)

It's been the longest winter on record in distant memory. Farmers are desperate, importing feed from overseas to feed hungry cattle and sheep. The fields are too wet for the cattle to be let out and the temperature too low to enable grass to grow. It's been too cold for newborn lambs to be left outside. I feel for those farmers.

Thomas Fire spurs sustainable recovery

The largest wildfire in California history had case closed on the 28th of February.  The final statistics of the Santa Barbara County fire show:

Acres Burned - Containment:	281,893 acres - 100% contained *** CAL FIRE is no longer in Unified Command of the Thomas Fire. Visit inciweb for more information on this incident.
Structures Destroyed:	1,063 Structures Destroyed, 280 Structures Damaged

Already, the rebuilding is beginning, even though some are questioning if that's wise and new mudslides threaten.

But one vineyard is doing something different. They are applying everything they learned during the fires to expand and install sustainable and safe energy systems. Stone Edge Farm Estate Vineyards & Winery, in the Mayacamas Mountains of Sonoma, won an award in January, not for its wines, but for its environmental and economic leadership. The 16-acre property was recently in the news for its microgrid system that held up with remote management during the devastating fires in Northern California. The staff was sent off and managed the entire winery and grid from positions of safety.

World wine production plummets

The Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin (OIV) in its press release called it "A historically low 2017 production especially in Western Europe due to unfavourable climate conditions."  GLOBAL ECONOMIC VITIVINICULTURE DATA estimated 2017 World wine production  at 246.7 mhl, a fall of 8.2% compared with 2016.

Daria's Vineyard

I painted a sign for our vineyard the year we planted our first grapevines. It helps us remember when we established the place. I think I did a pretty nice job on the signage. Now we need to design some logos and establish names for the wines and design labels for the bottles. Am I getting ahead of myself?

Licenses & fees

We're not ready to make wines yet, but the time may come this year when we may actually have a crop of grapes to try fermentation. We decided that if we didn't succeed in making wine, we'd go the distillation route to an eau de vie or vodka. So I have begun my research into what it would take.

It is illegal to distill for home use in Ireland. It is illegal to distill without a licence regardless of whether you intend to sell it or not. Plain and simple. In several other countries you apparently can but not in Ireland. Unless you use brewing vodka kits, with no distillation. There are robust yeasts that can get quite high alcohol concentration without distillation. These are just neutral wines which are treated with carbon to reduce smell and taste. Alcohol can be tax relieved in the case of wine, beer or other fermented beverage produced at home for personal use and not for sale, but it must be authorized by Revenue.

Clearing the grass

Croagh Patrick, the Holy Mountain

The weather was beautiful today so we took a walk to the summit of our land to see the views, plant a few more trees and enjoy the St. Stephen's Day holiday. The views were stunning but the land is very wet. The trees we have been planting out on about 1/3 of our ten acres are doing very nicely. The leader species - birch, willow, and alder - are growing vigorously. The ash and sycamores are coming along nicely too, but at a slower pace.

Pruning the grapevines

What a mess!

The job was daunting. We'd been gone most of the summer sailing, which isn't prudent when you are trying to start a vineyard, but hey it's all an adventure isn't it? Meanwhile, the weather had been mild and moist until last week when we finally had a cold snap. Frost, sleet, hail and snow finally put the vines to sleep and they dropped their leaves so we could see the structure of the vines themselves. And what we saw was not pretty. I kept going up there and coming back down without having done a thing.

LA region fires affect vineyards

First it was the northern wine country; now the Skirball fires are ripping through the outskirts of Los Angeles. Almost 200 homes have been destroyed by the fires which remain out of control. About 200,000 people have been told to evacuate. Loss of power is reported at more than 250,000 homes in Ventura County. The San Diego Freeway was closed. Fueled by hot Santa Ana winds, it is unusual that a wildfire like this has ripped through in December. A state of emergency has been declared yet again.

Fall has finally arrived in the vineyard

Fall arrived, if only for one day. Today it's back to warm and wet but yesterday it was cool, crisp, and sunny with frost overnight. The red vines have dropped their leaves but the white vines and hanging on. The grass and weeds have control. Next have to get out there with a shovel and dig out the docks. Then Alex will have to strim. Finally we will go in and select out the main shoots and prune away the rest. Then Alex can build the overhead trellis system we'll be adopting from Spain. Trying to be patient.

Red vines have dropped most of their leaves

White vines hanging on to leaves

Damage to vineyards and operations

Wine Spectator is reporting on the damage to winemaking operations and vineyards due to the fires in California:

Updates on Wineries here...

Expected impact on the vintage here...

Status of evacuations here...

Some ways you can help the California fire victims

Google Crisis Map 

California’s Wine Country is in a state of emergency as more than a dozen wildfires burn through large swaths of land in Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake, and Yuba counties. The fires have destroyed at least 3,500 homes, caused at least 30 fatalities, and forced an estimated 25,000+ residents to evacuate, with that number expected to rise. 8000 firefighters are involved in the fight, some from as far away as Australia.

Our first harvest

A few more red grapes.

This is for the white crop.

Well, we aren't going to be making wine just yet, nor is there enough for a jar of jam. But tasting these delicious tiny morsels that explode with flavour has been fun. We decided to pick today because we are expecting Hurricane Ophelia to hit on Monday. It might even cause a stock market crash according to an article in Forbes. Another article in Forbes today describes how rare it is for hurricanes to come up our way. We figured it was time to get ready, especially since another system would be affecting us in the days leading up to Ophelia.