Today, Gil, Yin and me went to Kurstin's vineyard in McLaren Vale. For doing the Consultancy Assignment, we need to invesigate the vineyard. Before our going, Peter gave us some instructions about there. Like we should make clear about the distribution of Eutypa and vigorous in the vineyard. Also, he gave us some recommendations about these two issues. Of course, more information we should get from our own investigations.
Kurstin has run her vineyard for 2 years. It is established vineyard accout on 10 hectares with vines planted during 1981-1986. There are two varieties in her vineyard, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Cabernet Sauvignon Grade 9 and Chardonnay Grade 5 are going to Hardy's winery. For its running for more than 20 years, there are some prombles presented on the vines. She finds Eutypa is quite serously with Cabernet Sauvignon and uneven vigorous distribution is in the whole vineyard. So, she wants to find good solutions with them.
After short walking in the vineyard, we entered into her study. There, she showed us many geographic maps of the whole vineyard. The soil type, the topography, the veraison pattern and the water content. All these geographic maps describe the vineyard situation perfectly. She also gave us the basic map of the vineyard, showing the irrigation line and valves.
There are some rootstocks, like Ramsey and Schwarzmann, in her vineyard and others are own roots. She told us, in summer, Cabernet Sauvignon vines on Ramsey rootstock were qutie vigorous, so they pull them out. Before their managment, all the vines there were two levels cordons for high yield. But they want to control the yield, so they cutted to one level cordon. However, for the affected by Eutypa, they are careful in selection of the cordon. And they also want to higher the cordon level, however, they find Cabernet Sauvignon have low reshoot ability.
For the uneven vigorous, she said one problem could be some broken drippers. Another can be affected by the slope. Like the vines at the bottom of the slope always get more water than the tops. And the top side of the west zone could be exposed by the wind damage and be compelted by the tall pine trees. Although, most of their soils are sand, she said there is no nemotode in their vineyard.
After this exploration, I find Australian viticulture is really not simple at the beginning. Even you explore the vineyards managed by the farmers, you will find they run them perfessionaly. Instead of just caring the vines, they apply many advanced techniques to support their vineyards. Additionly, they go to the Uni to study and achieve degrees to make themselves more competite. I have several classmates managing their own vineyard during their study periods.
McLaren Vale, my Australian Viticulture Impression!
24th Sep 2006 -- Y. XIAO