Vineyard Maintenance - Own Roots - Layering
Pruning & Remediation Time
Our Estate Vineyard
Our Estate Vineyard in Stone Well is now over 70 years of age, mature vines at or about their peak of production. It is thought (at least for the Barossa) that survivor vines (70+ years old) offer the perfect balance of yield and quality. Ideally we would like a slightly bigger crop for Shiraz, closer to 2 tonnes per acre, but we settle for 1 tonne in most years.
Keeping our survivor vines at their very best, Mandy is an absolute gem for our business manually pruning each block and each vine. In some blocks it is relatively simple. However, in others like Block 1 after the hail storm of 2021, it requires much more input, great skill and experience to ensure that vines are set up for the years ahead.
Reworking and repairing vineyards is a gradual process. Over the last few years we have planted our white field blend varieties and also converted the Mataro in blocks 3 and 4 back to bush vine (rather than trellis). Earlier this year we deployed straw to the hillside blocks to aid the organic recovery of the soils and retain more moisture.
This year, it is time to fill the gaps. Inevitably vines do succumb to various ailments over time. Faced with drought, disease and accidents, we do see vines damaged or dying. Where they do not survive, we endeavour to periodically fill the gaps.
Vines are incredibly resilient. In some cases they take things into their own hands. In the picture below, we see an old Shiraz vine in Block 1 that split. The left half fell on the ground, put down roots and is now growing a separate vine, close planted of course!
The Mother Vine, Progeny on the left
Fortunately, our block has relatively few gaps. But there are some so last year we took cuttings from our Estate Shiraz and had them propagated at the Yalumba Nursery. In August this year, we will plant those new vines into the gaps. It will be 4 or 5 years before we see a crop but the DNA of our block will be retained.
Layering
Since we had a number of gaps in the Shiraz vineyards, we chose to take cuttings and propagate them to plant the small vines across the block. However there are other methods, the predominant one that we have used for individual replacements is a technique called layering. To perform layering, we take a cane from the neighbouring vine and bury the end in the ground. It then puts down roots whilst still taking nutrients from the mother vine. After a year or two, we cut off the connection to the old vine and then we have a new vine of identical DNA that we tie up to the trellis and away we go. Simple right?
A new vine just starting out, care of the Mother Vine to its left
Looking Ahead
The process is gradual. Bit by bit, year by year, we take the opportunity whilst pruning to help our vines continue to prosper for the years to come. Happy vines, happy wines, and we have some wonderful wines from these vines from the 2021 and 2022 harvests waiting in barrels for bottling later this year.