October 2024
Things are not going to plan. The ripening of the grapes is way behind where we should be for this time of year and the forecast is not, decidedly, for a warm month ahead. The WineGB online forum pings with emails from wine producers sharing titbits without revealing their underlying anxiety, some trying to buy grapes at the last minute, others even trying to sell excess. Why, one wonders, in such a difficult year would one sell an excess?
Dave Morris, our viticulture consultant, comes to visit. It is a bit like seeing a consultant to discuss the outcome of some tricky medical tests. One is on tenterhooks as he does his tour of the vines and then sits down to tell me his thoughts of where we are. ‘As expected, considering the season,’ he pronounces. We are in better shape apparently than many Dave has visited but what I want to know is ‘will we get a crop at all?’ The early frost damage to the chardonnay has meant poor canopy and bunches formed from secondary buds, ie well behind primaries. They are small and feel like bullets. The pinot is in a much better shape with good hanging fruit, beginning to turn to black. However, the bunches on the shady side of each row are still bright red. We decide that there is little point in green harvesting at this stage, far better to spend the time fighting off fruit fly (spotted winged drosophila) with traps and removing any leaves touching a bunch which could cause dampness to spread. Also, as much spraying of potassium bentonite and kaolin – both clays – as possible. Any mildew in the canopy will have stopped being active by this stage in the season.
What to expect? I think there are 1.5 tonnes of pinot fruit but a high percentage will not reach the necessary sugar levels (nor reduced acid levels) to be able to pick. I taste a berry and spit out the sour juice.
We have a forecast for morning frost. I turn on the heated wires in desperation at 6am in the morning hoping they might generate a bit of heat. Down to 1.2 degrees and frost on the ground.
In the lap of the wine Gods
As I sit here planning the final lap before breasting the harvest tape next weekend, the rain is lashing down and we are in the middle of a high wind morning. Hell, this will shake more leaves off the vines that are already holding on desperately to the last of their clothes. But at least it is warmish and the overnight temperature has been high.
I meet with Jayne at Alder Ridge at Cobbs farm shop to check out her grapes. She is less than happy at the low sugar levels and high acids – put a chardonnay berry in the mouth and one is knocked back by the high acid in the mouth. She lends me her manual refractometer (a hand-held instrument for analysing the sugar in juice). I am less worried about high acid levels – we can work with these over time by fermenting in oak barrel – than low sugar content as we must, given that we are organic, follow this year’s derogation for organic vineyard of limiting ourselves to adding 1.5% of potential alcohol via chaptalisation, whereas the conventional wineries will be allowed (by Wine Standards) to add up to 3.5% of pure sugar. That will knock the fruit back. In a normal year we add no sugar at first fermentation.
Bird netting throughout the Chardonnay to prevent wholesale destruction from pigeons – a first.
Time to turn my mind to logistics: crates cleaned and ready, trailers checked, pickers contacted, food cooked for the vendange lunch, barn cleared in readiness for hordes with boots – we did our last wine tour yesterday with a party of young French visiting from London. They were great fun and knowledgeable, with two of them working in the drinks business.
Book event at the White Horse Bookshop in Marlborough on Thursday to a fun crowd. Questions from the floor include: what would you plant if you had more land, what has been the worst experience in the vineyard (plenty to choose from), succession plan, why are the government not encouraging wine tourism rather than messing about with alcohol duty and making life more complicated? The newbies like our wine.
Harvest Day
Finally, on Saturday 26 October we gather to take off the Pinot Noir grapes. It is hard work as there are some unripe bunches which I instruct to leave on the vine: these have a red look to them rather than fully black and on the taste are clearly not worth taking. Work is slow but by lunchtime our A team is finished and the crates are loaded on the trailer. The weight of the bunches is considerably lighter than last year, not surprisingly through lack of sunshine, but at least we have a crop to make wine from.
