It is August Bank holiday Sunday and we have just recorded our best eve sales from the vineyard Shop yesterday. Adam, one of our Vineyard workers was at Bodiam castle putting "Admit 2 for the price of 1" leaflets onto each of the 1000 or so cars which was parked there. We also have a massive new sign measuring 8' x 4' positioned in the new Millennium vineyard visible to traffic travelling south on the B2244 road. Poor Irma, on the first day back at work after our week's holiday and she did not know what had hit her! There were so many cars and visitors and mostly buying 6-packs of wine.
We had just returned from a week's boating holiday cruising the Thames from Kingston-on-Thames upstream to Reading and back - a round trip by boat of some 120 miles. How our youngsters survived a week without TV, video or computer games I don't know. But despite the 'normal' interpersonal battles of family holidays - caused no doubt by having to rely on each other for company and entertainment more than usual - we all arrived back in Sedlescombe bathed in tranquility of the river environment.
Actually the river Thames is an excellent example of how environmental degradation, neglect and pollution can be turned around by adopting more environmentally friendly policies. In the middle of the last century I lived briefly in London and the river had a reputation of being filthy - an evil smelling noxious water with no life left in it.
Nowadays, however it is pollution free and the marine life has returned. The water is incredibly clear, with the bottom clearly visible at depths of 2 meters and lots of fish, including salmon so we were told returning to the river. We can testify to the fact that there are lots of Bream as we caught several each around the 5-6 pound mark which we returned safely to the water.
It is exactly this process of restoration that the organic farming community seeks to achieve on our farmland and countryside. The evidence of the river Thames seems to be that if everybody pulls together and, given the right legal framework, financial incentives, and fines for wrongdoers then environmentally damaging practices can be replaced by ones which improve and restore wild life habitats, etc
Not much to complain about in terms of the weather this month. Just what the grapes needed to develop and grow - lots of warm sunshine. However, to give them more of a hand most of this past month has been taken up stripping the leaves off from the fruiting zone, an essential part of good canopy management.
The fruit needs the sunshine to ripen and develop the sugars that are essential for the wine making. However 90% of sunlight is absorbed by the top leaf, leaving only 7% for any leaf just below it. It is therefore important that the canopy is not too dense which means careful shoot positioning by hand. We think of it as 'combing' the canopy, preventing shoots from crossing over each other, so as to maintain a light open and airy canopy. At the same time as doing this we also strip leaves off around the bunches. This is simply a case of moving along the row of vines and literally scrabbling at the leaves with both hands to remove them. Quite a daunting task on 6 hectares (15 acres) but fortunately we had a small army on hand; a German girl, an Australian girl, a German lad and a guy from South Africa, quite a multinational mix.
Interspersed with this work was the usual spraying every 10 days or so to keep any disease at bay. This is also part of the reason for the leaf removal. It means that the spray can reach the fruit without leaves getting in the way.
Vineyard groundwork has continued with mowing the grass in alternate alleyways as well as sub-soiling and rotovating the soil ready for seed bed preparation and the sowing of the over-wintering green manure so essential for maintaining soil fertility and the well-being of the vines.
To sum up the grapes are developing well and the vines seem to be flourishing with very low incidence of either downy or powdery mildew. The berry size looks as good if not better than in recent years largely as a result of the organic chicken manure pellets applied in May which got subsequently washed into the deeper layers of soil where the vine roots are by the heavy rains of June and July. Despite a wet and cold start to the spring and summer we still have everything to play for and hope to achieve a good harvest come October. Before then we have to take measures to control birds by putting bird netting over the entire vineyards. More about that in the next newsletter!
Roy Cook (Wine Maker)