Vinegrowing Course - Day 4
I've got into the habit of reading some of the relevant chapters of Stephen Skelton's incredibly detailed "Wine Growing in Great Britain" on the train on the way down to Haywards Heath before each day of the course. The main takeaway from this today was that Skelton is really in favour of steel posts for trellising systems rather than wood, given that wood inevitably rots and then breaks) This opinion was indeed backed up by both Chris and Tom on the course today, and indeed most of Plumpton's Rock Lodge Vineyard (and the neighbouring Deer Field) uses metal posts. Although Tom did add the caveat that for aesthetic reasons as a comprises you may want to consider using wood for the end posts.
This morning's theory session started with a recap on vine nutrition, where Chris Foss, the course leader (who this month announced his retirement), showed us photos of various vines with different forms of malnutrition, and we had to guess which mineral was lacking. We were mostly quite hopeless at this.
The main focus for today was then site preparation / planting followed by vine training systems (trellising). On the latter subject in particular, both from reading Skelton's book and from the lecture this morning, I was amazed about how even this seemingly straightforward subject area quickly got so detailed and complicated. There are many alternatives, however, as with pruning (where Guyot seems to dominate), it seems one system for trellising comes most strongly recommended - VSP (vertical shoot position). In this system you encourage the vines to do what they want to do - grow upwards - and just have a single curtain, which is easily accessible from either side.
As much as the course itself, I think I actually enjoy the tea breaks / lunch break where we have an opportunity to chat with the other attendees. It turned out one of the attendees had planned to buy Frithsden vineyard (which I'd visited last year) but the sale ultimately fell through. The UK wine industry is a pleasingly small world.
After lunch we headed over to Rock Lodge vineyard for another practical session with Tom. This time we continued on the morning theme of trellising systems. Tom demonstrated tightening the fruiting wires, we got to grip with Gripples, then we also had a go at post-pruning tying down which was quite a satisfying job.
The practical session was cut slightly short by a sudden torrential downpour and hailstorm. I got quite wet getting from the far corner of the vineyard where we'd been tying down the vines to the toolshed, the only place which had any cover. By time I got there it had pretty much stopped.
One of the other attendees kindly gave me a lift back to Haywards Heath again, and I squelched into the Waitrose next to the station to see what local produce they had. I bought a couple of bottles of Sussex Wine. Bolney Estate's Dark Harvest and Cuvée Sir Harry Kroto from Breaky Bottom (I was particularly excited to see Breaky Bottom in a supermarket!). Also some Sussex bread and cheese.
This morning's theory session started with a recap on vine nutrition, where Chris Foss, the course leader (who this month announced his retirement), showed us photos of various vines with different forms of malnutrition, and we had to guess which mineral was lacking. We were mostly quite hopeless at this.
The main focus for today was then site preparation / planting followed by vine training systems (trellising). On the latter subject in particular, both from reading Skelton's book and from the lecture this morning, I was amazed about how even this seemingly straightforward subject area quickly got so detailed and complicated. There are many alternatives, however, as with pruning (where Guyot seems to dominate), it seems one system for trellising comes most strongly recommended - VSP (vertical shoot position). In this system you encourage the vines to do what they want to do - grow upwards - and just have a single curtain, which is easily accessible from either side.
As much as the course itself, I think I actually enjoy the tea breaks / lunch break where we have an opportunity to chat with the other attendees. It turned out one of the attendees had planned to buy Frithsden vineyard (which I'd visited last year) but the sale ultimately fell through. The UK wine industry is a pleasingly small world.
After lunch we headed over to Rock Lodge vineyard for another practical session with Tom. This time we continued on the morning theme of trellising systems. Tom demonstrated tightening the fruiting wires, we got to grip with Gripples, then we also had a go at post-pruning tying down which was quite a satisfying job.
Tom also got the tractor going and showed us how to grub up a vine. Although sadly for safety reasons we weren't allowed to have a go at driving the tractor ourselves, which clearly everyone wanted to. It seems they are removing their Seyval Blanc vines from Rock Lodge / Deer Field. It was actually a bit sad to see the vines being grubbed up, but I believe they've been there for quite a while, and have had a decent innings.
The practical session was cut slightly short by a sudden torrential downpour and hailstorm. I got quite wet getting from the far corner of the vineyard where we'd been tying down the vines to the toolshed, the only place which had any cover. By time I got there it had pretty much stopped.
One of the other attendees kindly gave me a lift back to Haywards Heath again, and I squelched into the Waitrose next to the station to see what local produce they had. I bought a couple of bottles of Sussex Wine. Bolney Estate's Dark Harvest and Cuvée Sir Harry Kroto from Breaky Bottom (I was particularly excited to see Breaky Bottom in a supermarket!). Also some Sussex bread and cheese.
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