July 2003
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Cordons and Canopies J-C was back on the farm for less than three weeks after the VinExpo trip before he starts his three month sabbatical in the Northern Rhone, so there was plenty to sort out. While in France he had made a thorough inspection of a few renowned cellars and, barring technical difficulties, it was decided we would go for unlined concrete tanks. He had also been looking at pruning regimes in some of the Southern Rhone vineyards and got a few ideas. This fitted in with our schedule as we were pruning our vineyard at this time. By the end of the first week of July we had finished the old blocks. We were also bottling the 2002 wines. As we said before this wine was from grapes harvested rather by accident than design from the two year old vines in 2002. A friend of ours had made the wine at his place as we didn't have the cellar built and so we have no intention of selling this wine or labeling it. It will be for home consumption. J-C had it analyzed and it was pretty healthy. The bottling process itself was a Heath Robinson affair. We did not want to hire professional equipment and a team for just 900 bottles so it was a question of improvisation at best. After a shaky start it went pretty smoothly. We had tried to adapt the system we had used for bottling mineral water from the spring but it was more messy than helpful, and in the end after spraying the whole place red we discarded it and went to a slower but drier method.
In the end it all went well, and we have just over 800 bottles, and a few magnums in the cellar. And the wine actually tasted pretty good. It has a similar earthy/mineral nose, with a bit of mint and hint of oak spice. The palate is pretty soft and round with a nice concentration (about 36g/l extract), and the va is about 0.7mg/l. All in all not bad. It does have a bit of a warm finish though! Back to the pruning. J-C had spent some time considering the trellising regime in our younger vineyards. Unlike the older blocks, the younger vines are all grafted onto R99, which is a pretty vigorous rootstock. The reason we used R99 was the depth the roots go to and their drought resistance. This suited us in that we use irrigation very sparingly and we want the roots to go deep to get the benefit of our soil. But there is always the other side of the coin with a vigorous rootstock. It has always been a worry for us that the canopy is going to be limited by the amount of vertical space between the cordon wire and the top wire, which is limited by the height of the poles. If the canopy does not have enough room a lot of trimming has to be done which means many peripheral shoots and so a very dense bushy canopy as opposed to an open airy sunny canopy. There were two choices. Raise the height of the poles or lower the cordon wire. It was one thing J-C noticed in France, none of the good vineyards have cordons much higher than 60-70cm. Ours are at 90cm. Given the fact that we have Syrah (vigorous variety), growing on R99 (vigorous rootstock) on reasonably fertile soils, J-C estimated that we would need between 80 to 110 cm height available for the canopy. The poles stand to a height of about 160 cm. If we aim for 90cm available trellis, this means we either need to extend the poles, or the cordon wire needs to be dropped to 70 cm. The other thing is the pole extension option. There are no really good systems that made us feel comfortable at this stage. Also the wind is so strong the poles may not take the extra strain of another 20cm of cordon on an extension. We also thought we might leave the vines to show their vigor, which will show itself in 4-5 years. Maybe then there'd be a better extension solution on the market, if we needed it. In the end the better option we realized was simply to drop the cordon wire. This might sound a bit drastic, but it's not really. J-C had done the same thing on a block of 12 year old vines on another estate and it has worked out very well. The only bad thing with older vines is that you lose at least two years of crop as the new horizontal arms have to be re-established. As our vines are still young, and being formed, it would be much less of a disruption in their lives. We spoke to Saansie as his team would have to do the work and had a look at the cordon wires. He agreed it would actually be pretty easy to move them down. So, what we proposed was to move the cordon wire down to 70cm. The first two foliage wires would then be at 90cm, and the next two at 120cm. The last foliage wire can be a single one at 160cm (a second wire could be added at 160cm later, if necessary). This option would be easier and cheaper in the long term, and involves less uncertainty than trying to extend the poles later. It will also look much better and natural. The other consideration was how much of next year's crop would we lose. We are all for (naturally) low yielding vineyards but we are also in the business of making wine and do not want to lose a whole crop. The average yield of the older vines (which we don't want to change) was between 2 and 3 tons/ha this season. This should move up to between 4 and 6 tons in 2004. The average yield of the younger vines was 0,5 to 1 ton per hectare this year. It would probably also double to between 1 and 2 tons in 2004 if we changed nothing. This does not count for the young Cab, which will still be yielding about a ton per ha. The yield of these blocks will be less in their third year compared to the older blocks due to the fact that 2003 was a much drier year compared to 2002, and these blocks have not developed as well as the older vines. If we move the trellis down, we can expect about 1 ton/ha in 2004 from the younger blocks of Syrah compared to maximum 2 tons if we did nothing. Moving the cordon will not affect the younger Cab. So the yield will be down a bit and we estimate we could lose about 8 tons. The benefits are clearly the improvement in vine formation and canopy size. A larger canopy will be able to ripen more grapes in the medium term and onwards. It will also give us the chance to even out the growth of the individual vines in the younger blocks. We looked carefully at the figures based on the above : 1. Old vines no change, yield = 4ha x 5tons = 20 tons 2. Top cabernet drop cordon, yield = 3.4ha x 1ton = 3.4 tons 3. Young Syrah lower cordon, yield = 6.25ha x 1ton = 6.25tons Total = 33.6 tons compared to just under 43 tons without lowering the cordons. Just over 2 tons per hectare on our 16 hectares. Around 20% reduction from the projected yield. As we are in this for the long term the priority is always the improvement of the vineyard as this is in the end what will sustain us going forward. In the cellar all the malolactic fermentation was finished, which was a relief, and we were busy topping up the barrels. J-C was busy getting quotes and info for the tanks.
The other great excitement was getting our barrel samples tasted by the gang at Platters. Every year so far, in their excellent guide to SA wines, they have been very supportive and given us a good, amusing and interesting write up. We are desperate to show them we are not all talk and no trousers, so J-C decanted a couple of bottles worth and drove it down to Stellenbosch so at least in this year's guide the commentator has something of a vinous nature to report on! Next month we hope to have some dispatches from the Northern Hemisphere as J-C takes up residence as chief drain cleaner and barrel washer at a small but excellent Domaine in Ampuis. Bit of a come down from lording it over all and sundry at TMV! Copyright © 2000 Tulbagh Solutions. All rights reserved. |
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