Natural Factors in Vineyard Influencing Style, Quality and Price Flashcards
Vine Species
Vitis Vinifera, main eurasian species
Vitis Americana, native to North America, resistant to phylloxera, used to produce rootstocks
Differences between grape varieties
Color, flavor, budding and ripening, resistance to disease,
Cutting
Cutting is a form of propagating identical plants by planing a vine shoot directly the ground, which will grows as a new plant. Widely used in nurseries (commercially) but represents a risk with phylloxera.
Layering
Form of propagating identical plants in the vineyard. Part of the cane is bent down and buried into the ground with tip pointing out. Once the cane takes roots, that section is cut into a new plant. Layering greats plants at risk of phylloxera.
Clonal Selection
Method used to propagate vines through layering or cuttings of vines that have had a positive mutation.
Clone
A clone is a vine or group of vines that have unique characteristics.
Propagating Vines, Identical and not identical
Identical Propagation: Cutting, Layering
Crossings (propagation by pollinating female part with ponen from male part)
How to create new vine variety
- Wait until a natural random mutation occurs
- Cross Fertilization: Polen from male part of vine is transferred to female part of plant. Very costly and time consuming since vines naturally mutate and one cannot control what characteristics will come out of the cross fertilization.
- Clonal Selection (cutting or layering)
Crossing
New plant created from two vines from same species. Ex. Pinotage (cinsault and pinot noir)
Hybrid
vine whose parents come from 2 different species. Ex. Vidal (Canada)
Phylloxera
insect (louse) native to North America with complex life cycle. It can live underground and feed on the roots, where it infects the roots. Infections enter through the feeding tubes, weakening and eventually killing the vine.
Rootstocks
American vines are widely used as rootstocks as a effective protection against phylloxera, as well as nematodes and drought protection (American vines are more resistant to drought).
Bench Grafting
Technique used to join rootstock to the cane of vitis vinifera by machine, which are then kept in warm place until two parts fuse together.
Head Grafting
Head grafting is technique carried out in vineyard where the vine is cut back all the way to the trunk and new canes are placed on the head (one or two) and are held together with a tape/adhesive product. Cheaper technique that allows new vines in vineyard without having to replant entire vineyard.
Vine needs
5 items: Sunlight (sun and reflected from water), heat (sun and irradiated from soil), water (rainfall, irrigation and water in soil), nutrients (soil or fertilizers) and CO2 (atmosphere)
A vine is dormant at 10C below. Budburst only begins at 10C.
Vine Growth Cycle
Dormant - Budburst - Flowering - Fruitset
Veraison - Ripening
Grape components
Water, Sugar, Acids, Tannins and Flavors
Green parts of the vine
parts of vine that grow every year.
Shoots, leaves, buds, flowers, berries and tendrils.
Bud
Buds are embryo shoots that from between the shoot and the leaf. Once formed they mature inside a casing for one entire growing cycle. The following growing cycle the shoot will burst open into a new shoot, with leaves, flowers, buds and berries.
One year old wood
Shoots will turn woody during winter and the following spring they become one year old wood, and the buds that formed on them will become new shoots.