Very sorry for the lack of blogs recently – winter is a bit of a mundane time in the vineyard. But the pruning has finished and the tying down to the wires finished also. I haven’t pruned the new plantation yet but they can be done later, even after budburst.

Colombard - Pruned and tied down.

Tying down colombard is a nightmare. It’s a variety prone to a maladie called “excoriose” which makes the wood very brittle. So when it comes to tying down a cane that is not perfectly positioned – they invariably snap which really winds me up! Selecting a well positioned, healthy cane during pruning is therefore the best way of avoiding this. Cabernet Sauvignon is very strong and so not a problem in this way. In fact, because of the tough wood it makes it very difficult to cut during pruning – swings and roundabouts. Merlot is the easiest and most well behaved – somewhere between the two.  

I have to admit I cheated a bit this year. I was getting behind I decided to get Jacques in with his pre-pruner to do the last hectare. This is a “front of tractor” machine that mashes the vine wood into small pieces above a certain height.

Jacques “pretaillage” machine.

The driver has to open and shut the sets teeth cogs to avoid taking out the posts at the same time. Not a job when you can switch off (unlike most tractor work).

After this you go through again and tidy up by hand, cutting the canes to short “spurs” and removing any unwanted, unfruitful wood. Usually, one cuts the “spurs” down to 2-3 buds – hopefully resulting in a total bud number of around the same as you would for cane pruning.

A finished, prepruned vine.

Pruning this way is not a lot faster (as it turned out!!) but it does save time because it eliminates the tying down process. Also, the old vinewood wrapped around the wire holds a lot of stored carbohydrates that will promote a stronger budburst. The main disadvantage is that you are retaining a lot of old wood that is harbouring overwintering disease spores. With cane pruning you’re reducing the amount of old wood by replacing it with a young cane from last year. So, it’s not a good idea to pre-prune for more than just one year, best to go back to previous system after this. And then , of course, you will be cutting through 2 year old wood – which hurts your wrist! I think I’ll stick to cane pruning next year.

I also been through the vineyard and removed all the dead vines that were infected with Esca (as described in a previous blog). This picture is the pile of vines pulled out from just 1.5 hectares. I’m praying they find a solution soon – but nobody is particularly optimistic.

And I’ve just finished the herbicide sparying. I try to keep it to a minimum, just concentrating on the weeds immediately between the vines. The rest of course can be cut down while mowing. I just can’t believe how many farmers here are still weedkilling their whole vineyards, between the vines but also between the rows. All I can think of is laziness (maybe there’s another reason – I can’t think of one). I have an apparatus that contains the spray and directs it to where it is required.

My herbicide sprayer - directs sprays and prevents drift.

The blue hoods at the front prevent spray drift during wind gusts. The brushes around the bottom of these hoods allow you to spray right up against the vines without damaging them.

 On a lighter note, the pigs have made a huge mess in the horse field. They used to be out free in the garden, but had to be contained when caught on various occasions, 100 yards up the road, eating Madame Lefort’s fruit – directly from the soft blankets that she had put down to catch the fallen apricots, apples etc in their small orchard. However, they’ve been rooting around and making a mess in Bonnie and Wilf’s field.

 So, I’ve set them free again and they seem to be staying put – so far so good. It’s great to have them wandering around the garden and vineyard. They are great mates with the chickens and even the dogs are leaving them alone (in fact I think the pigs saw THEM off). There’s a huge crop of acorns on the ground and in the vegetable garden which seem to be keeping them occupied. If I’m lucky, they might even rotovate the vegetable garden for me!

AA Milne was right about pigs and acorns.

by Nick

In the 1850′s phylloxera, an aphid that fed on vine roots, was nearly responsible for the total decimation of the wine  industry. This was due to infested vine plants being brought over from America. The american plants were resistant after years of attack, but in Europe these insects got a new lease of life.

Phylloxera aphid

Fortunately, it was discovered that by using those very same resistant american vines for rootstock material, grafted onto the classic european vine varieties the crisis was averted.

However, there is a similar worry in the minds of vignerons these days. Esca is a fungal disease that destroys grapevines  – from green and healthy to black, dried out and dead in just a couple of days.

This can happen in as few as a couple of days.

The disease is at it’s worst when the weather is hot and wet. It doesn’t usually effect young vines but once they are over 10 years old they become less resistant. It seems that the spores infect the mature wood over time but then quickly kill the leaves and green shoots.

The effect of esca on the vinewood and on the leaves.

It is an extremely complicated disease that few claim to completely understand. Some growers blame bad propagation in the nurseries, but most used to rely on preventative treatments. It used to be easily controlled until the french authorities banned the use of the chemical that prevents it’s spread. This was done for very legitimate reasons because that chemical contained arsenite. Sadly however, the authorities are doing nothing to find an alternative treatment. When I first arrived here in 2003, I read articles saying that after 10 years without control there would simply be no grapes left in France. Initially, this seemed a bit scare mongering – every year since then it has got worse – last year was terrible. If you cut the vines off at the bottom about 60% of the contaminated ones grow back the next year – but the rest are dead.I would estimate that my colombard vineyard is now missing 15%.

During pruning you have to be careful not to contaminate the secateurs. So infected vines such as this should be removed and burnt.

I read a very interesting article the other day by the “Coordination Rurale”. They were suggesting that the product could be reintroduced but only applied in the vineyard by a qualified person using a  recovery type sprayer.  Such  a sprayer straddles the vines and encloses the foliage within a  plastic or fibreglass structure that catches and retains any excess liquid that does not reach it’s specific target. When I was making wine in England we bought a couple of these machines in order to eradicate any spray drift and  also to reduce the amount of chemicals used. The sprays that were retained within the sprayer would be recirculated through the system and reapplied again efficiently – no drift, no waste. So if these sprayers were to be utilised against ESCA, and applied to our vineyards by specifically trained professionals – maybe there will be a future for our wines. But also I hope these recovery sprayers will become less expensive, less cumbersome,  and then used more generally  - they make so much sense.

These spayers eliminate drift and contain the chemicals.

But for the time being I will be doing my best to control Esca by cutting back the infected vines (in the hope that they will grow back) then removing and burning the dead wood.

by Nick

Well, I’m a little less than halfway through the pruning now – 2.5 ha finished, 3 left to go. My hands hurt, I think I’m getting RSI but at least the blisters have hardened up now! There’s about 4000 vines per ha,  so that’s 10,000 done, 12000 left to do.  I’m hoping I will get it all done before springtime. It’s a bit monotonous, but I’m out in the fresh air, in the beautiful Gascon countryside, and after the stress of harvest (and christmas) I have time to reflect and plan a  little while I’m working. 

Pruning (taillage) is not actually as simple as it looks. Basically, I like to keep one cane of about 8 buds and a spur of about 2 buds. The rest you cut off and discard. The spur is basically for security if the main cane was to break while being tied down onto the wire (liage).  However, it’s important to select canes and spurs that are from last year’s growth. Shoots that have grown from the trunk or older wood are not fruitful so you also need to take care that these shoots have grown from the cane or spur that you retained last year (one year old wood). 

Vines, having  been left with 10 buds in total, should (on an average year) yield about 7-8000 litres per year. This, in my view, is a good balance between quality and quantity. Too much fruit generally means less ripe grapes and ultimately thinner, more insipid wines. This is because the total leaf area produced per vine (which is limited according to the trellis) can’t photosynthesize ( z or s – not sure) enough carbohydrates to ripen so many grapes.  However, yield varies with grape variety (cepage), climate, the weather at the time of flowering, disease, and of course (worst of all) those Gascon storms in June and July. My first year here I lost 75% to hail. The stones were like shards of glass travelling at high speed horizontally through the vines. What was left resembled boiled spinach leaves hanging limpy from badly scarred sticks. I guess that was my little test from above to see if I was cut out for the job.  

Baby sauvignon blanc vine - pruned right back to 2 buds.

When it comes to pruning the newly planted vines, you need to cut them right back to just 2-3 buds. This concentrates the vines vigor with the aim of getting enough growth to reach the fruiting wire in the 2nd year and ultimately producing fruit in the 3rd. It’s backbreaking and involves being upside down for about 2 weeks!

by Nick

This skyline used to be a forest before the 2009 tempete.

Well, I hope everybody had a great christmas . I did, a bit cold but it’s fantastic when all goes calm and quiet for a while – although I appreciate many other peoples’ christmases are the exact opposite! In between eating and drinking, I’ve been out pruning, walking the dogs, checking on the other animals, and taking some photos of the beautiful winter scenes.

Boxing day morning and it’s minus 5 outside! The vines are covered in frost – beautiful but, sorry, FAR too cold to be out their pruning! So I’m doing my blog instead – which is actually well overdue. The problem with taking days off the pruning is that the winter months tend to fly by and suddenly you find yourself behind and panicing that it’ll not be finished before the spring budburst. Need to be disciplined!

 I took the dogs out this morning. We did a walk around the vineyard to the lake. It was completely frozen over of course but beautiful, the sun shining off the frozen water…

Boxing Day morning - icy lake.

But the dogs loved it. It’s quite difficult to prise them out the door in these temperatures, but  when they’re out they love it and their noses seen to be super sensitive and they can smell a coipou from a mile away. There was definately a scent around this morning. 

Something in the water!

Sorry - a bit blurry.

The pigs were the same – they had a lie in too. They’d built a nest out of straw in their house and were content to wait the frost out.

Just another 10 minutes and I’ll be with you!

Business as usual.

Wilfred - “am I bovered”.

Lastly, I’d just to say how pleased I was with my parsnips.  The vegetable garden was a bit of a disaster this year (colorado beatles, also some strange burrowing thing that kills plants from below ground) but I was surprised to find the parsnips had done so well – although maybe a bit irregular in shape.

Perfect parsnips.

Anyway, wishing you all a great new year and maybe I’ll get my blog back on a relevant track.

by Nick

After what seems like weeks of constant rain it was so nice to get out  and walk the dogs on crisp, misty and sunny morning.  It’s so beautiful here when the sun’s out – even in winter when the vines have dropped their leaves. Monsieur Lefort’s horses looked stunning, may be a little hungry too!! They came racing over thinking it was feeding time, then saw it was only me. Les pauvres! It’s a shame actually, if I understand him correctly, he bred his horses for eventing but the market is terrible now and he can’t sell them at the price he was hoping for. So he’s keeping them despite the cost because he loves them too much to consider the other (hate to imagine what they would be) options.

Hungry Horses.

Disappointed horses.

It’s strange this year, the first frost at the end of October was not particularly severe and the leaves hung on the vines longer than usual hence delaying the beginning of pruning. In fact, the baby sauvignon blanc vines still have leaves which is weird because they are so much closer to the frosty ground. They’re starting to go into dormancy now. Another 2 years and I’ll have wine made from Sauvignon Blanc – can’t wait!

The new sauvignon blanc vines - still with leaves.

However, the more established vines are now dormant.  The beginning of the long pruning season! Starting tomorrow… maybe. If I can’t think of anything else to do instead – like groom the cat, clip the dogs’ claws, clean the car… anything but pruning!! No, it’s not really so bad just a bit monotonous. Plenty of worse jobs in the world.

Colombard vines ready for pruning.

Normally it takes me up until March to finish pruning and get the wood tied down onto the wires.  But because of the late dormancy I’m going to be under pressure to get it all done before spring budburst. I’m going to have to get on amazon and order some new cds for my ipod! There’s only so many times you can listen to the same old albums before you start losing the plot.

by Nick

Have you guessed what it is yet?

by Nick

We’ve finshed pressing the Cabernet and Merlot now. Absolutely exhausted! All the fermentations have gone through completely, so that was a relief. We enjoyed making a mess – not just in the winery itself, partout!! And the dogs were being incredibly useful – of course.

Also, actually getting the grapes out of the “cuves” is a trial. During fermentation the skins rise to the top forming a cap. Then, at pressing time, you can gravity feed the juice into the press – which is easy. But it’s the getting the rest out  that’s the problem. You need to gently open the door (above the pump) and ease the grapes out. Too fast and you’re in big trouble! A bit nerve racking…

I think they will be really good wines having been so ripe. In fact they were so ripe that grapes were falling off the vines in front of the picking machine! Ripe grapes mean soft tannins, deep colour, and luscious fruit aromas. The wine flowing out of the press had a wonderful purple hue.

The dilemma however is that I need to find buyers interested in good Gascon red wine – sadly the region is not known for it’s red, hence the market is poor and so the price from the cooperative is awful. It would be a travesty to sell it that way. It’s a sad state of affairs that the  industry is still so dominated by narrow minded winebuyers with antiquated beliefs that good french wine has to come from a particular region. Bordeaux is only 2 hours north of here! Why can’t good red grapes grow in the Gers and why can’t wine be judged on whats in the bottle? Good wine is made by good weather, by good winemakers, from well managed vineyards and decent grape varieties. Sorry, that’s my rant for the week.

Anyway, the chickens love the leftovers. I think I better move this pile of skins before I have intoxicated hens and eggs at 12° proof.

by Nick