In the Vineyard

January is already drawing to a close, and I'm focusing on three different aspects of my mini-wine-business: in the vineyards, pruning, removing the canes, hoeing up around the vines, and other miscellaneous activites like cutting grass, fixings drainage channels, and fences, and generally tidying up; in the bodega, bottling up older vintages from barrels, and filling said barrels with new vintages; and on the home front, writing a HACCP (pronounced "HAZOP"), ie a food safety management plan! Amongst other things. But enough of that! Here's my latest news from the mountains:

In the Vineyard

The other day I was in my other Garnacha vineyard in El Tiemblo (Sierra de Gredos), having completely finished pruning the first (rock rose infested) Granacha vineyard that I wrote about in my previous post. Actually, I still have to finish raking up pine needles and checking and fixing the perimiter fence, but those tasks I have relegated to a lower priority, to be done 'some other time'!

So I spent the whole day here in this vineyard, but in a terribly inefficient manner - I only did 5 rows of about 10 vines. But I did them absolutely beautifully! More like gardening, rather than agricultural labour! I did it this way for a few reasons:

1. The vineyard now looks really beautiful as seen from the gate, so that keeps the owner and neighbours off my back - no more comments on how bad the vineyard look, etc, etc!  I'm used to it by now and I pay no attention, but it's still annoying!

2. A whole day's exclusive pruning is sore on the back muscles, so it's better to do a whole range of different activities that use different muscles

3. It was great fun and immensely satisfying to make such a beautiful 'garden' in the vineyard!

Here's some photos:

Natural State

The photo above (Natural State) shows the vineyard in, errrm, its natural state at this time of year; except for the near foreground, the vines are unpruned and there's lots of dead grass from last year between the rows; and there's new grass growing already, which is quite strange, but not surprising given climate change and generally increasing temperatures. I've even heard news of grapevines budding already - but not in Gredos.

 First Rows

The photo above is of the first few rows of the vineyard as seen from the road. After pruning the vines, I then cut the long grass with a sickle, and then hoed up around around them. I think this is a good idea, as the vines will be able to benefit from 100% of the rain that falls on them, with no competition from the grass and plants. They don't actually need all that water to survive, as their roots are very deep and can find water that the short-rooted plant cannot; and they are hardy drought-resistant varieties anyway. But even so, a little extra competitive advantage won't do them any harm, what?

Then I even raked up all the dead grass between the rows! I don't think there's any good agricultural reason for doing that, but what the hell? I felt like doing it, and the result look quite nice, no? It will be interesting to see if there are any consequences. For example, all the new grass might grow better now that there are no dead leaves and grass in their way. Maybe this spring these first few rows will be overwhelmed by new grass? Has my intervention upset the balance? 

Close-up

Above is a close-up of a pruned vine and its immediate surroundings.

Worm

Above is a lovely worm, evidence of a living healthy and balanced soil. Worms aerate the soil via the tunnels they make, thus helping to protect it from erosion; and they also improve its quality by eating, digesting and exceting it! Go figure!

Healthy balanced soil is very important, because vines can extract from it all the nutrients they need, neither too much not too little, but the perfect amount of each nutrient and micro-nutrient. Industrial-chemically farmed vines produce unbalanced faulty grapes because the soil they live in is biologically dead - it's just a substance that holds the vines upright, and which has an excessive over-abundance of some nutrients and a complete lack of others. There's no way possible to make a complex, interesting, terroir-expressing wine with grapes from that quality of soil. (Enough ranting already - Ed.)

A piece of bad news and really annoying too, is that 'someone' (I'm guessing the owner) took it upon themselves to prune the vines that I had deliberately allowed to climb up the various trees growning in the vineyard. This was so I could make a tiny experimental batch of 'Roman' wine. I haven't spoken to the owner about it yet - I'm letting time pass so I won't be so upset and angry when I do bring the subject up.

The Romans had three systems of grapegrowing: trellised and bush vines which we inherited from them, and also a third method which consisted of letting the vines grow up trees, which we have lost today. Pliny and Columella write about it at length here and here, respectively.

I hope to finish pruning this vineyard soon and make a start on my third, newly acquired, Chelva vineyard here in El Tiemblo.

That just leaves the Carabaña (Airén/Tempranillo) and Villarejo (Malvar) vineyards, but they have interesting issues/complications, ... which is another story!

I've also done some work in the bodega and at my computer, but I'll leave that for another post and another day.

Who or what ate my grapes?

Our sparkling wine experiment has suffered a setback.

Look, no grapes!

The aim of this joint experiment, in collaboration with Alfredo Maestro, was to make a few hundred bottles of sparkling wine, using our white Airén grapes. We (Vinos Ambiz) would provide the grapes/wine and Alfredo would provide the special facilities needed for sparkling wine (cooling equipment, racks for placing bottles upside-down, etc) and the knowledge of how to actually make the stuff!

The idea was to set aside some of our normal Airén wine (which we've done) (see #1 below) and then ALSO do a late harvest and ferment a second lot of wine separately. This wine would have a higher alcohol content and would also contain residual sugar which is needed for the 2nd in-bottle fermentation that takes place in sparkling wines.

Look, more no grapes!

Well, as you can see from the photos, there's no grapes!!! We suspect that they were eaten by little animals (rabbits, birds) and/or insects. It hasn't really rained a lot in Madrid since the harvest, except for a few heavy downpours, and night-time temperatures have reached around -8ºC; but the rain and the cold wouldn't have affected the grapes that much anyway. It must have been the animals.

Look, still no grapes!

But all is not lost, and we still have options open. The main thing for me now is to carry on and actually produce some sparkling wine somehow or other and to learn for the experience - after all, that's the reason we're doing all these experiments! And I've been looking forward to doing this since last June when the idea first came up, so I'm not giving up now!!!

Basically we need a source of sugar for the 2nd in-bottle fermentation. And these are the possibilities that have ocurred to me so far (in order of preference):

1. Grapes from our own vineyard (Not possible now)
2. Organic grapes from a neighbour (difficuclt, if not impossible)
3. Conventional grapes from a neighbour (almost impossible)
4. Organic grape juice or must (?)
5. Conventional grape juice or must (?)
6. Bog-standard chaptalization like they do in France (?)

I don't really like any of them. But I don't know; maybe there are other options that I don't even know about (yet). Maybe we don't even need residual sugar at all and can do without? I dunno! I'll have to read up a bit on the subject, and not let poor Alfredo do all the brain-work, as he's done up to now!

In any case, next year (because we'll definitiely be trying again next year) we'll have to think about it more carefully and have some kind of contingency plans in place.

Look, yet more no grapes!

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Note #1: Our 'normal' Airén, which we've been making now for 8 years has turned out really good this year. (We organized an informal tank tasting last Frinday (post coming soon) and it went down really well!) We're presenting it and releasing it at a Tasting Event that we've organized for Monday 13th December at 20:00, in Madrid (CSO La Tabacalera, Glorieta de Embajadores, 1). See Event on FaceBook: Natural and Organic Wine Tasting
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Spring Has Sprung – But The Pruning Is Not Yet Done

We did more pruning over the weekend, but we’re still not done. There’s about another 300 vines to go. It’s very late in the year now, and we’ve passed the folkloric popular-wisdom deadline of 19th March, by which you’re supposed to have the pruning finished. But I think we’re OK as the buds haven’t opened yet, even though they’re swollen and ready to burst any day. Not optimal, but OK.

The almond tree in the vineyard, and all the others in the Tajuña valley have blossomed at last. Very late in the year, this year, as usually they blossom in February round here.

Blooming Almond Blossoms

(compare with previous post)

The same almond tree

I was cutting back some grass that was too close to the vine, when I uncovered an earthwork. This is good news, as it’s a sign that our soil is healthy and full of nutrients. And even better news is that worms actively improve the fertility of the soil.

Earthworm in the vineyard

Some time back, (in this post: ___ ) I mentioned that we were going to transplant some sapling oak trees that had sprouted next to some vines, and over the weekend we moved two of them (out of a total of five that I’ve found so far).

Oak sapling's original position

Digging a hole for the sapling

Organic manure to help the sapling on its way

Planting the sapling in its new home

New Home 1

New Home 2

And lastly, here’s a pic of two little thyme plants (‘tomillo’ in Spanish) growing next to a vine. Do you think they could have any influence on the characteristics of the grapes/wine?

Little thyme plants next to a vine

Spring is Springing in the Vineyard, but General Winter is Still Camping Out in the Winery

Another day of pruning in the vineyard.

We should be able to finish just in time before bud-burst. It's very important to finish pruning before the sap starts flowing in the vine; if you prune after the sap starts flowing then you are removing nutrients that the vine needs to sprout new leaves. It takes a few weeks for these new leave to mature and start to photosynthesize sunlight to make their own energy. Until that happens, the vine relies on the sap that it stored in its roots and trunk during its dormant period in Winter.

Octavio (3 1/2) helps his Dad (me) with the pruning

Lavinia (5) also helps her Dad

This is a baby thistle, which will turn into a 2 m (6 foot) monster by this Summer!

 We like to create bio-diversity in the vineyard. Instead of ploughing up the rows between the vines and leaving the soil naked and exposed, like our conventional neighbours do, we let all the grasses and plants and flowers in the vineyard grow and we only cut them back when they get too tall or too near the vines. On the one hand (1) this is a good pest-control system, because all the little beasties eat each other up and no one species ever becomes a problem. if you plough up the land, you destroy the habitat of all the beasties except for the one that lives on the vines, and the only way to deal with it now is with chemicals because you've destroyed the habitat of its predators.

Secondly (2) we believe that by leaving all these plants, grasses, thistles, flowers along with their populations of insects, pollens, native yeasts, etc, we obtain richer and more complex tastes and aromas in the must and in the wine.

Thirdly (3) by leaving all the plants and flowers, we protect the soil from erosion due to wind and rain.

And here are the buds on the almond tree - still haven't opened

In the bodega things are a few degrees cooler!

Disk of ice

Corks drying out, in the sun

Pruning our Sustainable Vineyard

Last Saturday 6th Feb we were pruning again, this time just three of us (no students!) so we managed to do quite a lot (about 200 vines) relatively speaking, but unfortunately we took far too long over lunch, otherwise we could have done maybe 300 vines!

Juan prunes a vine

The two photos below show the same vine, before and after pruning

                      Before                                                After

The next two photos below show the same vine before and after sawing off a dead ‘arm’

                       Before                                                      After


Here we can see a ladybird (US: ladybug), a bit out of focus (sorry, will do better next time). Ladybirds are our friends! They are super-predators and eat all sorts of nasty aphids and bugs that attack the vines/grapes. This is just a small part of the vastly complex biodiversity that we work to create in the vineyard, as opposed to using industrial agro-chemicals that poison the environment and affect peoples’ health.

"I say ladybird, you say ladybug"

More biodiversity! This is a holm oak sapling (one of five) which has sprouted right next to a vine. We are going to transplant them to the edge of the vineyard next day we go.

Holm oak sapling 1 of 5

Below left is a vine that has gone wild, ie the grape variety (either Tempranillo or Airén) that was grafted onto the rootstock either didn’t take or died off at some point. There are about 100 of these wild vines in the vineyard, and we are planning on regrafting them this Spring with a different variety. Any suggestion as to which variety we should select?

                   Wild                                                  Tamed

Above right  is what was left when I’d finished with it! The reason we prune these vines back is not for any ‘production’ reason (the bunches are tiny and the berries are tiny too) – we only do it because they grow enormously long and smother the neighbouring vines (which are about 3 m away!).