Ch 5 Vineyard Establishment Flashcards
What considerations need to be made during site selection for high-volume, inexpensive or mid-priced wines?
- Need high yields of healthy grapes that can be produced consistently and cheaply –> look for flat, fertile sites in warm, dry climates (eg Central Valley, Chile)
- fertile, warm - high yields can ripen adequately
- dry - reduce incidence of fungal disease; save costs on spraying or too careful sorting in winery
- flat - mechanisation, cheap and quick
What considerations need to be made during site selection for premium or super-premium wines?
- Need healthy grapes of optimum composition (acidity, tannins, color, sugar, aromas)
- In cool climates, sites need to maximize potential to ripen grapes so on slopes or aspects that will receive most sunshine throughout day (eg Rheingau, Germany)
- In warm climates, sites may need to have cooling influences such as altitude (Luján de Cuyo, Mendoza) or cooling sea breezes (Casablanca, Chile) to better balance the wine
What additional considerations need to be made regarding site selection?
- Price of land (higher if within desired GI’s)
- Location, layout, topography may have cost implications - if within frost pocket that affects yields, sites susceptible to pests/diseases
- Steep slopes not suitable for mechanisation, labor costly and hard to find
- Irrigation costs
- Ease of access to vineyard and distance from winery - time, plus probability of healthy grapes reaching winery with limited risk of oxidation or spoilage
- Proximity of vineyard to towns, cities for labor, supplies, customers, distribution businesses
- PDO laws which stipulate grape varieties, yields, practices, etc
Explain the concept of terroir.
Terroir is an overarching concept claiming that the distinctiveness of quality wines is due to their sense of place. This can mean that a wine reflects the characteristics of where its grown - climate, soil, aspect, elevation - or the human interventions stipulated by PDO’s for example. Some wines claim (more for marketing purposes) that wines are directly influenced by geological make-up of the soils.
Terroir can be obscured by overly zealous winemaking and market demand and interest in this concept has pushed winemakers around the world to focus on the expression of terroir, especially by making wines from single vineyards or specific locations.
What are the main factors grape growers need to assess within the vineyard soil?
- Drainage and structure - impact on nutrient holding capacity, workability. Large rocks removed, plough pan (impervious layer of soil from previous agriculture) needs breaking down
- Mineral composition
- Presence of pests or unwanted plants - remove weeds or old roots from previous crops (burn them)
- Levels of nutrients, organic matter - manure, compost or fertilisers may be added through ploughing; soil pH
What properties of a grape variety do grape growers need to consider when choosing a grape variety? Same w clones
- time of budding - early budding (like Chard) are more at risk for spring frost than late budding (like Riesling)
- duration of annual life-cycle – early ripening grapes are better suited to cool climates, so they reach a suitable level of ripeness before wet cold weather starts toward late autumn (Chard + PN); late- ripening varieties better suited to hot climates (Mourvedre)
- drought tolerance - Grenache=water stress = Rhone, Spain, McLaren Vale
- disease resistance - less susceptible to disease (CS less prone to grey rot in damp climate like BDX, good blending partner for Merlot)
- Winter hardiness - Vidal + Riesling - tolerant of cold temps, good in Ontario and FLX
- Vigor - high-vigor varieties like SB need managing (canopy) to avoid excessive shoot growth especially if grown on fertile soils w lots ofwater
What might a grape grower consider when choosing a grape variety, aside from climate?
- Style of wine - low tannin fruity early drinking versus tannic, robust, for ageing
- Yield - high-yield (Grenache) good for high-volume inexpensive
- Cost - more “difficult” grapes like PN require more monitoring, labor and risk
- Law - legislation restricts what grapes can be planted in many EU countries
- Availability - demand, quarantines before introduction
- Market demand - what the people want - if grower wants to follow a trend, they can graft a bud from a new grape variety at the top of an existing vine - benefit from existing root system so produce fruit quicker, but rootstock might not be prefectly suitable for new grape variety
Why are grapevines grafted onto rootstocks?
To protect vine against phylloxera
List the criteria a grape grower might consider before choosing a rootstock. Where do these characteristics come from?
A rootstock’s characteristics are usually linked to its parentage, so many rootstocks are hybrids to take advantage of features of both parent species.
- Pests
- Water
- Soil pH
- Vigour
List two rootstocks resistant to root-knot nematodes
(both Vitis champini)
Ramsey
Dog Ridge
Drought-resistant rootstocks
(hybrids of V rupestris and V berlandieri)
110R or 140R
Rootstocks for water-logged soils, high rainfall
V. riparia- Riparia Gloire
Rootstocks for areas w high level of salt in water
V berlandieri (1103P)
Rootstocks for soils with low levels of pH (acidic soils)
Hybrids of V rupestris and V berlandieri (99R and 110R)
Roostocks for soils with high lime content (high pH)
V berlandieri - 41B
