Jonathan’s Vineyard Blog July 22nd
Jonathan’s Vineyard Blog
22nd July 2022
I am writing the blog at the end of a week in which we have witnessed record high temperatures across the British Isles - we recorded 38 degrees celsius here in Godstone on 19th July. High temperatures prove uncomfortable for the majority of us, however, luckily vines really thrive in such conditions and we are tentatively beginning to believe that, all being well, 2022 will be a very good vintage.
The mid Summer period is incredibly busy in an English vineyard and perhaps the most important task is canopy management. In essence we need to trim the vines and the labour cost of undertaking this would be excessive if we did the job by hand; therefore we use a fancy piece of machinery (expensive !) which fits on to the front of our tractor and, operated safely from the cab, cuts back the top and sides of our vines.
A job which would take one person several weeks can now be done in less than four hours - that is progress !
Trimming the vines is vitally important for several reasons : it results in uniformity of shoot length (if the number of leaves per shoot is similar and each shoot is able to provide for its own fruit then it is easier to optimise our yields) ; trimming greatly benefits fruit set ; removing excessive foliage significantly reduces disease pressure, especially Botrytis ; perhaps most importantly opening up the fruit zone improves sunlight to the developing grapes, aids the movement of air through the vines, and reduces humidity. The combination of all these will help us to achieve our main ambition, which is to produce a clean, healthy, disease free, quality crop.
In addition to trimming the vines we have now installed the post and wirework for our new vines which were planted in May 2022.
Our shop is open every weekend and our 2020 Sparkling Wine is selling like the proverbial hot cakes ! It is proving extremely popular as a refreshing antidote to a hot Summer’s evening so why not pop along and treat yourself to a bottle or two … we always love seeing you.
Kind Regards
Jonathan
jcdeeley@godstonevineyards.com
