Pruning and Digging and Snipping Wild Shoots

Hopefully this will be the last pruning post (for this year). Not because I've almost finished the pruning, but because I'm getting fed up writing about pruning and would quite like to write about something else too!!! About vineyard and winery things, that is.

But, I do have some interesting (I hope!) anecdotes from my latest pruning session over the Easter break:

Numbers

I actually counted the vines that we have in the vineyard in Villarejo! It turns out that there are about 820. But I'll have to count them again properly one day and draw a map, because it's not so simple. The rows have 41 vines and there are about 20 rows, BUT it's not a regular rectangle! One of the sides is squinty so it's more like a lopsided parallelogram! Also, the vines are not planted in square grid shape, but in a hexagonal pattern (called 'tresbolillo" in Spanish), so each alternate row may really have 40 or 42 vines!

Anyway, as of Monday 9th April, I still have about 520 vines to go.

Wild Shoots

I'm going at a rate of about 10 vines/hour, which is very, very slow. The reason for this is the wild shoots that are growing around the vines, sometimes directly from the main trunk from under ground level, and sometimes independently rooted just next to the vine.

Ridiculously long, thin and numerous wild shoots

This must have been due to laziness on the part of the person who ran this vineyard before we took it over last year. It would seem that he just snipped these shoots back at ground level, without uprooting them or cutting them back properly from the main trunk. This would solve the problem for a year, but the deeper problem would just get worse and worse. As you can see from this vine above, for example.

Not all the vines are that bad, but I reckon about 75% of all the vines have some wild shoots that have to be dealt with.

State of the Soil

Well, as I'm digging so much in the soil, I've been getting a good look and feel of it! I think it's surprisingly healthy! There are earthworms, and other beasties underground, always a sign of a soil which is alive and healthy I believe. Above ground there's a veritable plague of ladybirds! I've never seen so many. They must be eating up every single aphid in the vineyard! Unfortunately I can't take a decent photo of them with my current mobile.

Other fauna

Butterflies, magpies and another type of singing bird which I can hear but have never seen. Moles, or mice or some kind of tunnel-maker, as can be seen from the holes and little piles of earth here and there. I presume that this is a 'good thing' as this will help aerate the soil.

Flora

The grass has started to grow, and some flowers and plants too. We have mostly little white flowers and little yellow ones and occasional little blue ones:

White flowers

Little blue flower

(pending: forgot fotos of yellow)


Wild Shoot Elimination Sequence

This is how I do it:

1.

This is the way a vine looks (1) when I approach it for the first time. First of all I prune the top, as usual,

otherwise the canes get in the way.

Next step (2) is to clear away the leaves and vegetation (if any) so that I can see what's there, and then to snip the shoots away at ground level:

2.

Step (3) is to dig a trench next to the shoots so as to expose the roots, down to about 20 or 30 cm. Sometimes they go deeper, but I'm hoping that at that depth they won't be able to grow back.

3.

Step (4): Snip! Snip! Snip!

4.

Then, pull the earth back into the trench, and lastly, superficially dig up all the earth and grass in a radius of about 50 cm around the vine, so that it ends up looking like this (5):

5.

Then, repeat Steps 1 to 5, and you get a nice row of vines that look like this:

One row done

I'm doing this so that the vine can have what little water is available. Otherwise the grass and flowers nearest to it would drink it all up. Normally, I don't think that this would be a problem for the vine, as it can access deeper water, but we're in a drought cycle here in central Spain, so I think that every little bit helps.

And the reason for cutting away the wild shoots is so that the vine can focus all its energy and nutrients on the fruit-bearing upper branches - instead of producing and feeding all those unproductive shoots.

The Rain in Spain

Well, even though it rained during the Easter break (enough to spoil everbody's holidays, as tradition demands!), it didn't really rain a lot, at least not to the east of Madrid! And here's the evidence to prove it: the second-last day I went to prune, at some point I took off my jumper, as I was too hot, and laid it on a vine intending to pick it up when ready to leave; but I forgot it, and there it stayed for two days while it was supposedly raining. When I noticed it the next day I went, it was almost dry!!! Only just a tiny bit damp.

My dry jumper after two days in the rain!

A Really Wild Vine

I found this beast (below) the other day, hidden in the grass between the first row proper of the vineyard and the road. I was just about to dig it up, when I thought that it would be nice to leave it alone and see what it does! So I even made its life easier for it, by cutting back the tall grass and flowers near it, and by pruning it a bit.

(dammit, lost the photo, will take again, next time, sorry)

The Natural Wine Movement (and my Back-Label Dilemma)

As I'm sure you all know, there's no such thing as the "Natural Wine Movement", except in the sociological sense, ie in the same way that there's a "Risky Sports Movement", a "Recycling Movement", a "Real Ale Movement", etc.

There's not really a Secret Inner Ruling Council (even though I leaked the agenda from the last meeting here!), no membership cards, no statutes, no articles of association, no head-quarters, no offices, no rules, no nothing.

What there is, is quite a few associations of natural wine producers, mostly in France and Italy. They actually do have rules and criteria for membership, and if a winemaker agrees with them, then he or she can join the association. Here's a list of the ones that I know about:

- Association des Vins Naturels
- La Renaissance des Apellations 
- Productores de Vinos Naturales
- VinNatur
- Simbiosa 
- Vini Veri

What there also is, is a whole lot of people who share an interest! People of all sorts, from all over the world, and from all walks of life. These people include:

- Producers (associated or not). There must be a few thousand, producing an average of say 5 to 10,000 bottles a year. Mostly artisans, tiny part-timers with no webpage, selling only locally to friends and neighbours; some small viable businesses, with proper labels, distribution and sales networks; and even some bigger ones bordering on industrial style wineries. And there's a whole grey area of traditional long-standing producers of fine wines who may or may not be 'natural' depending on your deifnition!

- Traders (importers, distributors, wholesalers). Difficult to work out how many there are, as some carry both natural wines, organic wines and conventinal wines in their portfolios.

- Retailers (winestores, restaurants, winebars). Again difficult to work out how many there are for the same reason, though I believe that more and more such places are opening up. Seems to be the only sector growing this days in the midst of a recession!

- Writers, journalists, bloggers. I don't think many actually focus exclusively on natural wines, though recently over the last year or so, more and more conventional wine writers have started mentioning natural wines - usually negatively and/or focussing on side issues.

- And lastly, consumers, with every kind of day-job under the sun, but who at night come out and indulge in their passion for natural wines. The most inportant category of all, because without consumers, the rest of us would have nothing to do! There must be thousands of them, and increasing in numbers every day.

All these people have one thing in common: we all love to drink, enjoy and talk about natural wines. We all know what kind of wine we're talking about, don't we, even though there's no legal or official definition. Maybe some of us would like to have an official definition, and maybe some of us like it the way it is now, and maybe some of us don't care one way or the other. I personally don't! Life is short! Let's just all get on with it and stop fretting. I mean, seriously, who's got the time and resources to actively attempt to get some
legislation passed on this? I think talking about this issue over a glass or two of natural wine is about the only effort I'm going to make in that direction! Cheers!

No Pedantic Definitions

It would be far too boring (both for me and for the readers of this post) to draw up my own list of forbidden substances and processes, in yet another personal definition of natural wine! Instead, I've decided to abide by Joe Dressner's 14-Point Manifesto, which you can read here (on Cory Cartwright's Saignée blog).

It's anything but boring! In addition I've added a 15th Point:

"I have the right to delete, add to or modify any of the above-mentioned 14 Points, based on how I happen to be feeling at any given time. So there!".

Also, I've decided to publish the information on the wines that I produce, with details of what I do and don't do to each wine. On this blog (and on my future webpage), on printouts, and on the back-labels. That way, the consumers can all decide for themselves of the wine in question is natural or not, or just how natural it is on the scale of naturalness.

Which brings me to the main point of this post.

Below is a draft of the back-label that I've been working on. It would be great if you could give me some feedback on it. I'd be especially interested in your thoughts on the inclusion what the wine DOESN'T contain and what HASN'T been done to it. Is this legitimate? Is it disrespectful or denigrating? Is it legal?! Is it a good idea? Does the consumer have the right to know both what's in a product and also what's NOT in it? Whatever! Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

- - - - - - - - -
I consider this bottle of wine to be natural wine because of the Ingredients.

It contains the following:

• Fermented organic grape juice

And it doesn't contain the following:

• Traces of pesticides, insecticides, herbicides and fungicides
• Industrial enzymes
• Industrial bacteria
• Industrial yeasts
• Colourants
• Preservatives
• Flavour enhancers
• Acids
• Sugar, fruit juice, fruit extracts
• Added water
• Wood chips
• Tannin powder
• Sulphites or other chemicals

I also consider this bottle of wine to be natural wine because of the Processing.

I did these things to it:

• Crushed the grapes
• Pressed the grapes
• Racked the wine from one tank to another

And I didn't do these things to it:

• Heat up the wine
• Cool down the wine
• Filter the wine
• Clarify the wine
• Use reverse osmisis
• Use spinning cones
• Use cryo-extraction
• Use sterile filtration
• Use any other agressive techniques

I believe that all the above information is legitimate and relevant, and that the potential consumers have the right to know about the ingredients and processing of the product they are about to buy.

Signed
(Fabio, grapegrower, winemaker and marketer)
 

Some Vineyard Photos and Comments

Yet more pruning today in the 'new' vineyard in Villarejo. New in the sense that that this is only the second year that we've been caring for it. The vines are actually about 20 years old (Malvar variety).

It's really slow going, as just about every vine has wild shoots growing out of the trunk from under ground level. I remembered to take some photos this time!


Wild shoots from below ground level

 This means that I have to dig down and expose the point where the shoots grow out the trunk and then cut them off. They're usually about 20 to 30 cm deep under ground level. It takes about 10 - 15 mins per vine.

More wild shoots

I only managed to prune about 40 vines today.

This is what the end result looks like, after excavating, cutting of the shoots, and filling in the hole:

Pruned and ready to go

I think the vines are running a bit late this year. The buds are only just starting to show the first signs of swelling, and absolutely none have opened.

And to finish off, our friends and super-predators - the ladybirds:

Ladybird on the landing pad

This photo is quite amazing. I caught it right at the moment of take-off! If only I had a higher quality mobile!

Ladybird taking off

Almost Finished Pruning

I finished pruning the vineyard in Carabaña over the weekend. This vineyard is planted to Airén and Tempranillo, all mixed up at random!

Vineyard in Carabaña all pruned

It's rather strange that the vines haven't started 'crying' yet. Usually around this time, the vines come out of their winter dormancy and the sap, stored in the roots and trunk, starts flowing. You can tell because it drips out of the cuts left by the pruning for a few days until the vines heals itself.

pending: photo vine crying from last year

I have a few theories:

1.As we're in the middle of a drought here in central Spain, maybe some self-defence / survival mechanism has kicked in and the vines are holding back the sap, or not sending it to the extremities?

2.Maybe they're just late this year. The buds haven't even started to swell yet

3.It's happened already, but I haven't noticed? Unlikely! surely I would have noticed!

Semi-wild roadside vines on the embankment



Another semi-wild vine

These vines are semi-wild! They're growing on the embankment beside the local road from Carabaña to Villarejo, which runs right next to the vineyard. Usually we pick these grapes only if we have time, and have the energy to scramble up the embankment through the undergrowth. So I thought this year I'd clear away the grass, etc, to make access easier. I also pruned the ones down low, but I just left the top ones to run wild(er) and see what happens.

Vineyard in Villarejo, last year

Anyways, now onto our other vineyard in Villarejo. We actually started, last week, but we only did about 100 vines. Another 400 or 500 to go. This vineyard is planted to Malvar.

We have an added complication in this vineyard. For some reason, almost all the vines have shoots coming out of the trunk from below ground level. (Sorry, I have no photos - will remember next time). So the quick-n-dirty solution would be just to quickly snip them off at ground level. But they would probably sprout again over the spring/summer, taming energy and nutrients away from the productive shoots up top, and making access difficult, and creating humidity by blocking the wind and sun! What we really should do (and what we've in fact done so far for the first 100 vines) is to dig down, expose the roots, and snip them right at the base where they grow from. That way they shouldn't grow back.

This takes about 10 minutes per vine, more or less, two people (one digging, one snipping). Which means 6 vines/hour, which means 50-60 vines/day, which means 8/10 days. Hmmm, maybe doable, maybe not. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes.

Pruning Pruning Pruning

I've been pruning for 3 days in a row, and just about every weekend for around 2 months. When I close my eyes I can still see images of canes and vines!!!

Pile of canes

Unpruned vine

More canes

More unpruned vines

More piles of canes

The Carabaña (Madrid) vineyard, planted to both Airén and Tempranillo all mixed up, is almost finished - only about 100 vines to go. Then we'll start on the Villarejo vineyard, planted to Malvar, which has about 500 vines. Both these town are to the SE of Madrid and within the area covered by the D.O. Vinos de Madrid, though we're not regestered.

Unpruned vine in Villarejo

All our vines are low bush-type vines (fr: 'en gobelet'; sp: 'en vaso'), so it's quite hard on the old back muscles! The worst is at the beginning of the season, especially the first day, but after that it gets better.

Every morning, during the pruning season, I usually do some stretching and some sit-ups, which helps a lot and strengthens your muscles. The last three days were a bit much, though, so I'm going to give it a rest till the weekend.

Lots of unpruned vines

Pruned vines

More pruned vines

I think we're doing OK for time. The vines seem to be dormat still, as I haven't seen any "lloro" (crying!), ie a watery liquid that drips out of the pruning cuts. They should be waking up very soon now, as the max day temperature is easily about 25ºC here in central Spain. I've actually had to use sun-block and wear a hat! And drink 3 liters of water per day! It's still cold at night, but not below freezing any more.

After pruning each vine, we stack the canes in piles in the lanes between the rows of vines. In a month or so a tractor will come and chop them all up into tiny pieces. The tractor pulls a box-like implement behind it with revolving chins at ground level; the chains pulverize the canes and mow the grass and plants down to ground level. This is all good organic matter which improves the structure of the soil.

Spring is springing, slowly but surely. I've noticed more insect life lately in the vineyard. There are lots of ladybirds (ladybugs), and the other day I saw a lizard and a spider. Good predators! Yesterday a bee came by as I was having my lunch. As you can see from the photos, the ground is still quite bare, but the grass is starting to grow already. In about 2 weeks the ground will be visibly green.

Ladybird

I'm sorry if you found this post a bit boring, but that's all that's happening at the moment!
 
Here's a photo that's NOT of a vine or of a pile of canes :)
 

My lunch!

 
Here you can see my lunch in the back of the car! Bread, cheese, 'jamón', fruit. And in the background, my gloves, hat and pruning shears!

Airén 'Orange' Wine Pairing with Korean and Japanese Food

Well, this post totally breaks my New Year Resolution not to post or comment until at least 24 hrs have passed, but hey every rule has an exception!

So three of us went to this Korean/Japanese restaurant in Madrid, called "Los Palillos del Cardenal", which means 'The Cardenal's Chopsticks'. We reckon it's a good quality restaurant, because even though they have a reasonably priced set menu (€12), the place is always full of authentic Asian diners, as opposed to tourists or local office workers!

The Cardenal's Chopsticks

We ordered a glass of the house red (Rioja) so we could compare, and then I asked the waiter if we could have the bottle of my Airén 'Orange'. He was cool about it, but asked us to try not to let his boss see us!!! And he didn't charge us any corkage fee!

For the first course, two of us had tempura and one had hot spicy soup. The consensus was that beer (or soshu, or even water) would have been better with the soup and that any type of wine was wasted. More or less the same with the tempura, but with the Orange prefered to the red.

Airén 'Orange', sushi, spicy soup and kimchi

With the main courses (sushi, bimbimbar and chapchi) it was much better. With the sushi it was a hit! There was enough tannin and body to the Orange wine to stand up to the intense sushi flavours. We reckoned that a typical, standard, fruity type white wine wouldn't have worked. The red was too oaky and sweetish, and didn't really accompany well. The Orange also had a grapefruity, citrus-like bitter quality which worked very well.

I reckon that the flavour of orange wine is so unusual and different from a 'normal' red or white wine, that the surprise value is also significant.

With the Kimchi, I'm not sure. I think beer would have been better than any wine! It was a strong, intense and spicy Kimchi and I think it could overpower any wine! The worse is a red oaky wine.

Airén 'Orange' and kimchi

 
Well, some food for thought there!

Experiment Update: Pressing Grapes out of our Amphora / Tinaja / Qvevri

Background

Last Saturday we pressed the grapes from our clay amphora. This is an experimental lot of about 300 kg of grapes that we crushed and fermented back in September 2011. Ever since we moved ito the current winery in Morata de Tajuña a few years ago, I'd been noticing these two old clay amphorae sitting in a corner of the patio, gathering dust and leaves. So finally, last August, I made the effort, and I managed to convince Juan (my partner) and the other Juan (the owner of the winery and of the amphorae) to clean one and to use it to make wine.

So in Spetember, when we harvested the Malvar grapes from our new vineyard in Villarejo, we filled up the amphora with manually crushed grapes, sealed it, and basically left it alone (see this post). We didn't add any substances at all (no SO2) and we just punched down the cap every so often until the skins didn't float any more. Anyway, that's 5 months of skin contact.

During this time, the skins, pips, lees, etc all sank to the bottom and the top became liquid - a golden transparent liquid.. Every so often we would open up the 'lid' (a plastic sheet tied down tightly) and we would taste the wine to see how it was developing.

Operations

Phase 1, as is the case with any of our operations, was cleaning and setting up. In this case it was quite simple as all we needed was a basket press, a stainless steel tank and pneumatic lid, and some assorted bits and pieces.

Cleaning the press and tank

Phase 2 was scooping out the liquid part from the top of the amphora. We used buckets and poured it straight into a separate airtight container, not into the press. We want to keep this wine separate from the wine we press off the grapes, to see if they are different in any way. With hindsight, we realized that we could have moved this wine by gravity, just using a simple plastic hose or tube, but we didn't think that there would be so much of it. We expected only a few bottles worth, but we ended up with about 50 liters. A little lesson learned there for the future!

Juan scoops out wine

Pouring and filtering

Phase 3 was scooping out the grapey-winey semi-solid mush and puting it into the basket press. This we did with buckets until the level got too low for us to reach down into.

Juan and Juan scooping out grapes

Pouring into the press

Phase 4 was tipping the ampora over so we could continue to scoop out and fill the press. We had to be really careful as we didn't want to have an accident and break the amphora, so we secured it to the wall with a rope, after tipping it over to about 45º.

Amphora secured to wall

But it was no use! We still couldn't reach all the way down to the bottom, so we laid it down horizontally.

Horizontal

Mission accomplished! And with the added bonus that the quantity on the amphora was just right to fill the basket press, so we could press the lot in only one session. :)

Pressing is hard work!

Mushy grapes

Murky turbid wine. Note the ingenious filtering device!

Phase 5. The last phase is always cleaning the equipment used and tidying up. A great bore to be sure, but really necessary!

Hosing down

Cleaning out

Some thoughts and some tasting notes

We were all surprised at the quality of both the liquid wine at the top and of the soupy gunge at the bottom. There were absolutley no off-tastes or off-aromas. During the tastings over the last 5 months, the dominant tastes and aromas were those of clay and earth! And we weren't really too happy about that. But on Saturday, for the first time, we tasted the wine physically far away from the amphora (we went outside into the patio), and the clay and earth tastes and aromas were almost gone! They certainly weren't dominant. Instead we could taste 'normal wine' with notes of citrus, quite tannic and mineral and bitter, but with some sweetness there too. We think that this wine has got some way to go still, and that it will age well. In fact, we're thinking of looking for a used oak barrel, that was used for white wine, and ageing it in there for a while. In a week or so, depending on tastings, and ambient temperatures, and level of clarification, we'll rack off the big lees, let it settle down again, and see how it develops. Maybe we'll keet the two lots separate or maybe mix them back together again.

Nice clear golden wine from the top of the amphora

I wonder how they did it in the old days before stainless steel and when clay amphorae were common, especially the big fat ones that ccould hold thousands of liters. How on earth did the move the grapes/must/wine/pomace?

Surprise Visit

Mid-morning as we were pressing the grapes, we received a surprise visit from a group of people who are going to open a stall in the Municipal Market (in the Lavapiés District of Madrid), selling organic wine, not only in bottles but also loose, by the liter, in recyclable, reusable containers, in some arrangement with their customers. I think that's a great initiative, as these municipal markets are kind of languishing these days - I suppose due to competition from supermarkets, shopping malls and an aging population in the city centre.

They told me that the Ayuntamiento (City Council) has relaxed its Byzantine requirements for obtaining a license, but that even so it was still a Kafkaesque nightmare! They haven't actually got their license yet, but they've started sourcing their local organic wines already - hence their surprise visit. After us, they were off to see another organic wine producer Andrés Morate in Belmonte del Tajo. Anyway, I hope they like the samples we gave them and that they succeed in obtaining their license and that they order some wine from us :)

Leaked: the secret agenda of the Natural Wine Movement

(Note to readers: this post is meant to be funny! It's my attempt at humour! I'm not angry, upset or ranting or anything like that!)
(Note to self: must work on this humour thing a bit more)

Wow, awesome post, oh Blogger! I think you’ve managed to cover absolutely all of the points that have already been repeated ad nauseam by other bloggers, already, before, over and over again, many times. And with an original amusing anecdote on how un-natural it is to make wine included. Keep up the good work.

The semantics. Yes, all the humans with brains already know that there’s nothing natural about making wine. It’s just that we, in the Secret Inner Committee of Utmost Control of the Natural Wine Movement, thought that ‘natural’ would be a really cool and useful adjective to use, and so using our super-powers and remote mind-control techniques, we have forced thousands of wine-lovers and wine-writers everywhere to use the phrase ‘natural wine’ against their will. It’s such a laugh seeing all these people using the word ‘natural’ with a meaning that’s not even in the dictionary yet. Ho! Ho! Ho!

The marketing. We’re onto that too. Agents Retisson and Ilocsam, to name only two, have responded perfectly to our conspiratorial promptings and scripts, and we’re very pleased with the levels of stridency, disdain and outrageousness. Yup, we’re well on the way to compliance with our secret agenda. As to Denigration Marketing, I have to admit that we didn’t actually think that one up ourselves, but we can certainly use it now that it’s been brought to our attention. I’ll bring it up personally with The Secret Agenda Setter at the next meeting.

We’re also working on the winemakers themselves. It’s come to our attention that some winemakers are actually trying to make the best wine they can; and even more shockingly, some have even succeeded in this misguided endeavour. Rest assured that we have the means to secretly inoculate their wines with Brett, VA and super-charged oxygen. And for serious cases we have a special micro-biological swamp solution.

These wines will of course be priced accordingly. Just as we can force wine-writers and wine-lovers to use the word ‘natural’ against their wills (and with a totally misleading meaning too. Ho! Ho! Ho!) we can also force thousands and thousands of customers to seek out winebars and restaurants and to actually pay good money to consume the stuff.

We are also working on suppressing any sensible, interesting discussions about natural wines that could potentially benefit the wine world. Any talk about how natural wines may possibly express a ‘terroir’ better than conventional wines will be stamped out ruthlessly. Same applies to talk about how maybe excessive interventions in the winery may possibly mask or destroy the expression of a ‘terroir’; similarly, how the abuse of chemicals in the vineyard may possibly alter the quality of the grapes; No, we will ensure that the debate about the semantics of the word ‘natural’ will run and run and run. We will ensure that our agents regularly blurt out strident, disdainful, arrogant marketing sound-bites, and that wine-bloggers everywhere respond to them. We will use our mind-control techniques to make these wine-bloggers repeat themselves even more than they do now; we will come up with and implant in their brains, ever more clever and amusing analogies showing how un-natural it is to make wine.

It has also come to the attention of the Secret Inner Committee of Utmost Control that there are some natural winemakers who are using SO2. Not to worry, we can easily deal with that too. Firstly we will make them all grow beards, including the females, and implant irresistible urges to follow the phases of the moon, planets and stars, and to plant cow horns and stag bladders in their vineyards. They will then be so busy doing this that they’ll forget all about the SO2. Their wines will then correctly oxidize prematurely.

We are bit worried by the numbers and varieties of natural wines that have an excessively long shelf-life and that improve and evolve over time. We’re not sure what to do about this, but if the word gets out, then it could seriously compromise the belief that natural wines are delicate, vulnerable, unprotected, and deteriorate quickly if frowned at for too long.

Last but not least, we will be implanting the latest version of the following modules in the brains of all sommeliers, restaurant staff and wineshop attendants: Skorn 4.6; Pat-Ro-Nize 2.0; Pompuss 5.1;