Vineyard News

Rain, rain, mud, rain. In fact only about 4 days of sun that I can remember for the whole of June, but despite the unnaturally poor weather for this time of year the past month has been quite productive.

In the Millennium Vineyard 1000 new vines have been planted. This involved drilling a hole every 1.3 meters with a hand controlled, petrol driven hole boring machine (easy going down the slope, not so easy pulling it back up!) and then inserting the young vine with a bit of compost and manure and then backfilling the hole with soil, or rather, mud.

Black plastic matting was then laid over the top of the rows to prevent weed growth. This was fed out on a roll at crawling speed from the back of a machine hitched onto the back of the tractor with someone following behind making a slit in the plastic to allow the top of the new vine to show through. A bamboo cane was then pushed into the ground next to each vine and a sleeve of netting put around the vine to stop rabbits eating the young shoots.

In the mature vineyards at Sedlescombe and at Bodiam the main task was to 'break out' unwanted shoots. In brief, this is simply to ensure that the shoots remaining have the best possible chance of good fruit production. A vine will throw out many new shoots, not all of them fruit producing. These need to be removed so the vine's energy is concentrated into the shoots that do produce fruit. Also some

shoots will grow very close to each other and so, to avoid a dense canopy, these are also removed. This also helps prevent diseases such as mildew which thrive in a dense, humid micro-climate. All this to, hopefully, produce as much yield and quality as possible - despite the weather.

Following up the theme of last month's newsletter - the dumper post banger did eventually arrive and did fit between the rows (just) and successfully managed to bang in the posts - all 400 of them, and here's the photo to prove it!

Soil Fertility

In conventional vineyards vines are fed directly with 'soluble chemical' fertilizers . In contrast, organically farmed vines at Sedescombe are fed indirectly via the soil micro-organisms. We have to build back soil fertility. We do this by several means. In spring we spread chicken manure pellets. These come from a Soil association approved source which must not involve battery chickens. Soil Association standards are not just about about prohibiting the use of so called chemicals but now extend much further to include many aspects of animal welfare. In addition we use 'green manure cover crops grown between the vines. These are specially selected plants such as clover and lucerne, for example which are 'nitrogen fixing' plants whicch have the ability to fix nitrogen from ther air and make it available as a plant food in the soil. Last week I enlisted the help of my 12 year-old son who drove our ancient 50 year old grey ferguson tractor (a present from my father, now 90 years old when he retired) to do the seed sowing. These are the seeds we sowed:-

1) Perennial Mix

Medicago sativa (Lucerne, Alfalfa)

Lotus corniculatus (Birdsfoot clover)

Trifolium repens (White clover)

Trifolium alexandrinum (Egyptian clover)

Trifolium hybridum (Alsike clover)

Sanguisorba minor (Lesser burnet)

Carum carvi (Caraway)

Achillea sp. (Yarrow)

2) Amelioration Mix ( added to Perennial Mix)

Fagopyrum esculatum (Buckwheat)

Phacelia tenacetifolia (Phacelia)

Rhaphanus sativa (Oil raddish, Rape)

Vicia villosa (Russian vetch)

Latyrus sativa (Chickling vetch)

Here you have a wide variety of flowering plants which benefit not only the soil but insects and in turn birds as well. Not only that, but when they are in full flower, will look fantastic as well! Timing of seed sowing is critical. The forecast last weekend for the coming week was for plenty of wet weather - just what the seeds need to germinate succesfully and to establish. We sowed the mixture in the new Millennium Vineyard and in Vineyard 2. Look out for it next time you visit.

Peter Scott (Vineyard Manager)

Wine Making News

At last the long promised Cherry Wine has been bottled, along with both the Blackberry Liqueur and the White Grape Liqueur. When the rains hit in earnest last week this year's cherries were badly affected. They split literally overnight making them unsuitable for the fresh market yet, if pressed quickly, usable for wine. We have pressed about 1 tonne for Black Cherry Wine to be bottled next Spring.

Customized Labels for Rentavine Members

We hope soon to have an on-line label design facility for members to design their own labels which we can then print out and apply to wine purchased by members. Watch this space. In the meantime don't forget to take a look at the re-vamped Rentavine website created by Geoff Gilbertson. Which reminds me, last month Geoff came down from London to work on the website but as we had been let down by the agent who was set to do Battle farmer's Market Geoff ended up spending his Saturday selling our wares at the Market. Thanks Geoff!

As I write this mid-July the vines are just starting to come into flower. We are hoping for an improvement in the weather so that the fruit sets properly - otherwise the flowers just shrivel up and drop off and dont develop into bunches of grapes.

Fingers crossed for summer sun.

Roy Cook (Wine Maker)