Darling Wines

Please read the following blogpost by Christian Eedes.

Darling Cellars Lime Kilns 2010

World Environment Day

June 5th is World Environment day. The theme for this year is "Forests: Nature at our service".

We at Darling Cellars are very passionate about preserving our environment. Being part of BWI makes us constantly aware of the struggling environment, and what we can and must do to help save and preserve it.

I'm not going to babble on about being green - you all know the importance of saving our earth and the dismal state it is currently in, but I do want you to reconsider your lifestyle and habits.

If you want to know what World Environment day is about, please check out this link - WED

I'm quoting the following facts for your convenience, but here is the link anyway - Link

Forest Facts

Saving forests requires a change in lifestyle

Pruning Bush Vine Grapes

In this post I will try to explain the process of pruning bush vines. It is very different from trellised vines, but the principle stays the same.

Firstly, pruning commences when the vines go into dormancy, which is during winter. The plant sheds its leaves and the processes in the plant came to a halt.

Before you start cutting away at a vine, there are some aspects to keep in mind.

Your first consideration must be the purpose of the specific block of grapes. Is this a bulk block, a reserve, a premium or ultra-premium block?

Secondly you must let the vine tell you how to prune it. It will show this through the vigor. A very vigorous vine is not in balance. This is your job to always maintain balance in a vine. Vigorous vines can be brought into balance through putting more bearers on. It is important to spread the bearers around the vine and not all to one side.

Thirdly when pruning you should consider the leaf to fruit ratio. This is actually controlled more during suckering, but the initial phase starts during pruning.

Okay, now to the practical part.

Let’s start off with first year plants.

(Pictures taken from "Wingerdbou in Suid-Afrika", page 203)

During the first winter pruning (B.) all the shoots are cut away, except the strongest one that is upright. This shoot is cut back to two buds. (can be three buds if the shoot is strong) Cutting back so drastically in the first year ensures that more growth goes into less shoots the following year, resulting in stronger arms and quicker development.

The vine should not ripen any fruit in the first two years. Any fruit should be cut off at an early stage. For the first three years we focus on vine development and not on production.

Pruning Season

Blogger was down last week, so I skipped an update, but here it is.

We started pruning last Monday. It is only the big producers that needed to start, the smaller producers will start in June/July. Pruning the old bush vines isn't very complicated. The vines are formed already. Things that is important is leaving renewal shoots and building arms for balance. I will explain all of this with some sketches later on. For now, I just want to show you some pictures of the pruned vines. We prune the vines in two phases. The second and final phase is as close to budding as possible.

This specific block is a Chenin blanc that is 26 years old.

Sowing Cover Crops

After some much needed rain, the soil isn't as rock hard and it gave the producers a gap to plant the cover crops. In a couple of weeks I'll show you how these grains grow and look, but for now I just want to show you how the seeds look. If you look at the picture, you will see the grain seeds, and the white pellets are a chemical form of nitrogen to assist the cover crop in rapid growth to have as much fiber as possible in the end.

There are several methods to sow the cover crop. You can do it by hand, by means of a planter (like in the pictures below) or by means of a fertilizer spreader. On terrains with a big percentage of larger rocks, it is sometimes impossible to use a planter or spreader and sowing by hand is the only way. Your covering will not be as good as with the other two due to no seedbed preparation, but it is still worth it to get some organic material onto the soil.