It's All About the Cabernet

Two weeks later we’re easing up to the equinox and going in for the Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s the very opposite of the Malbec harvest – the moon is full, the energy, autumnal, the light silvered, brooding, quiet. The sea is snapping, blasting powerful low timbre pops that rise to reverberate over the ridge, like the sound of a faraway storm. I’m receiving the sounds in my gut like a type of foreboding and I will my breath to slow and my silly human thoughts to empty out so that something else can come in.

The ground is damp to my bare feet. The slightest breeze feathers up laden with moisture, redolent with anticipation. The fullish moon sets down below the horizon and the light has been extinguished. The night has been switched back on. Mercury and Venus have risen and gleam in the East, Saturn and Mars blaze in the western sky. It is a celestially rich moment with various forces and planets lining up perfectly. I’m feeling positively biodynamic as I rock down to the vineyard.

I compose the horoscope of this vintage in my sleep-deprived skull. Addled, grinning, I physicalize the least profound thoughts in all of astrology. I’m giggling with the chill energy of the morning, tasting grapes as we roll up the nets. I pause and listen to the world waking up -- first kookaburra, then magpie, lark, honeyeater, western ringneck parrot, the convoy of crew rolling in. 

Dawn discovers us picking with golden puffs of clouds flying sacred missions through the azure. Then in come the white tailed black cockatoos like a benediction. They station themselves in the marris ringing the vines and set up a cacaphonious hymn that’s immensely cheering. Their presence bookmarks an amazing year – they were here at the beginning of pruning and again as we pick the sum of the year’s work.

We pick and sort and sample brilliant grapes and we’re beaming. The whole lot is relaxed and focused, and dare I say it, fun? The fruit arrives steadily, bursting with flavor, life and energy. This is the essence of harvest.

I arrive with the first fruit at the winery and more cockatoos scoop in for a greeting. The whole world is talking, and I’m smiling as I listen.

Taking Cuttings

I’m out in a driving rain, taking cuttings. I pull up the hood on my rain jacket moments before gusts of rain smack the back of my head. The leaves of the Marris are clapping, and there’s a sparkle in the air. A new hawk is cruising the vineyard. As the rain abates I see her, a slender Nankeen Kestrel, Falco cenchroides, backpedalling over the Malbec, hunting for mice. 

My back is raw from my efforts and my wrist is carpel tunneling from repetitively squeezing my secateurs. I’m clad from head to toe in protection – tall rubber boots, rain pants, rain jacket, glasses and gloves. Despite the gloves, my hands are torn up and calloused. I’m tying the cuttings in bundles of 50 and find it hard to tie a knot with my gloved hands, so I remove them. The cool wood feels terrific against my bare skin and what's more I feel I can distinguish the strength and particular lifeforce of each individual cutting. They certainly do feel different from one another, apart from the smoothness of the wood. Some have terrific vigor and carry a profound strength. Others are twisted and their vivacity is less clear. Some simply possess a deep calm energy.  Others have an energy that’s a bit out of control.

I actually discard a few of my earlier choices based on what I am feeling. The weak ones are out, as are the weedy ones. I feel that the overly vigorous ones will be more herbaceous in growth rather than fruit bearing. They have long stretches between nodes and a slight unevenness to them that I decide to reject. I’m acting on intuition, trusting my instincts, as I have no precedent for this.

I continue my experiment of sticking this material directly into the ground that was prepared last year. I’m replacing cuttings that didn’t take - most likely because they were planted so late in the season. I pack the soil around each plant so that there are no air pockets, and pull the odd weeds that have come in through the mulch – a type of onion, bunches of ryegrass, a radish, some bracken fern. This particular block is somewhat shielded by trees: parts of it will not receive early morning sun whereas parts will miss sun in the late afternoon. It will be interesting to see how and if that affects ripening and flavor.

Elsewhere we are “layering in” missing vines rather than starting them fresh from cuttings. This is a way of propagating a new vine from an established “mother” vine. Layered vines grow more quickly than cuttings because they receive nutrients from the mother vine. The aim is to get the new vine to create its own roots while it is still attached to the original plant. We pick a long vigorous cane from one vine and dig a hole where we want to establish the offshoot. We loop it in the hole and bury it with the tip up, leaving several buds above ground.  We train it the same way we’d train a newly planted one. The cane will root itself and eventually we will sever the connection to the mother vine.

The layered look: