Clean Water Means Clean Wine

We were walking under a mosaic of sky, across a prominent granite outcrop pocked with pools of sky-reflecting rainwater and tufty mosses and gnarly tea trees (Melaleuca sp.). The silvered vault was split by curtains of rain blasting in and gusting away across the paddocks, feathering the trees. Another typical day filled with cloudbursts!  We were on our weekly family trek exploring our land, which lately has brought us here to monitor the lifecycle saga of our indigenous frogs, amid the superabundance of water.

The boys darted up ahead to try to dam the flow above the waterfall. My tadpole catcher stalked tadpoles. At every step hundreds darted into the shelter of submerged mosses. A raft of frogspawn clung to a few spikes. Miraculous that a frog will grow out of these miniature beads of nutrient jelly! Thousands of eggs anticipating thousands of tadpoles, so many already visible across this wet expanse of rock. The tadpole hunter discovered a section of frogpoles, which is what we call them at the stage when they have both legs and tail. They are so tiny and so perfectly formed. They whirled off into the refuge of the mossy green.

Frogs are bioindicator species, thriving only in suitably clean habitats, and their abundance here is further testimony to the purity of this place. Our water is so clean, we “drink from our roof”. Where else can you drink unfiltered rainwater, knowing that it is untouched by any pollution including radioactivity? This very water will course underground providing sustenance to our non-irrigated vines. And frogs have established themselves in the vineyard as well. You can hear them chirumping away, in joyful counterpoint to the Indian Ocean’s thunder.

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:

The Terroir of Terroir

All this controversy about terroir has got me thinking about the influences of that “je ne sais quoi” that ends up in the bottle. Most wine is incredibly manipulated. It stands to reason that minimal manipulations should reflect the terrain the best, that any inputs would dull the impact of the place expressing through the final product. It’s an argument for natural wine, but just because a wine is natural doesn’t make it a good wine. This is borne out so often in the tasting, alas.

So I’ve preferred those definitions of terroir that alude to a partnership between the vigneron and land, but still find that concept pretty grandiose in practice. While I do see myself in partnership with my land, I also see that the contract isn’t on my terms, and the fine print keeps showing up. Partnership implies a certain give and take. But even the most enlightened farmers I know are giving through human prescribed lenses and taking what they are able. There’s little sense of mystery - the partner isn't actually acknowledged nor credited.

I don’t know how enlightened I am. I’m dogged though, learning from knowledgable old timers, and books, and from my comparatively limited in duration, direct experience of the land. Theoretically it’s coherent. But I suspect that the land is just incredibly generous and tolerant of or amused by my arrogant attempts to “work with it".

Yet some aspects of my relationship to the land are undeniably reflected in the wine. Does my vibration as a grower enter into it? Do my moods, preoccupations, and energies really affect the outcomes? Or are my results merely a question of the physical inputs the vines receive on this particular piece of earth?

Today I was planting Peppermint trees (Agonis flexuosa) along the Caves Road verge. The rain was hammering down, as it has been for months, no let up in sight, resulting in unprecedented surface water in the vineyard (unprecedented in my experience). All that water has to go somewhere. The result is that I crossed two deep flowing creeks, where previously at most I’ve experienced a trickle.

The freshly shoveled dirt smelled the way it looked, red and luscious and deep. I sniffed it greedily, rain splashing everywhere. I was camouflaged in my green raingear, and crouching on my knees, patting a seedling home, when I was startled by a pair of ducks gliding to a touchdown right in front of me plopping into the creek and swimming upstream.

They actually didn’t see me as they swam in tandem against the current, ducking and feeding and quacking to each other. Partners. Could terroir be the partnership between the land and what we do on it? What an arrogant thought. Terroir is the grace of this place, the generosity of all the forces and powers operating here, mostly beyond my ken. Like this creek that appears in the rainy season to house a universe of animals and plants, only to disappear in perfectly adapted dormancy in the dry, it is the only appropriate response to forces and cycles no farmer can hope to manipulate, or understand.

Cuttings

There's a breeze out of the North and the sun has prevailed today over our customary winter rains. I am gleaning cuttings from the first Chardonnay prunings, seeking straight, healthy wood amongst what were the new canes from last year's growing season. I've been cutting the bottom of the canes across the bud itself, as instructed by the old timers, marking the top ends with a diagonal cut so that I can easily tell which way is up.

Margaret River has not experienced grape phylloxera (the sap sucking insect that feeds on grapevines, responsible for the plague that destroyed the European wine industry in the late 1800's), and so it is possible to root these cuttings directly, rather than first grafting to rootstock. The cuttings are placed in a sandy nursery where they will form a white tissue called callus, and the roots will grow out of that. These will be transplanted into the new vineyard blocks. However the cuttings taken today will go directly into the ground, as replacement cuttings for some transplants that didn't make it last year. It's one of many ongoing experiments. Callusing occurs in warm conditions and is necessary for root formation. These replacement vines will remain relatively cold in the ground until Spring, and thus will most likely not callus up until quite a bit later. But I can easily shove them into the soft ground now, without digging, whereas planting the rooted cuttings will require considerably more effort. So I'm experimenting to see how well they take.

I'm alone, and taking my time with it, listening to music with my headphones as I wake up muscles that haven't been used for a while. I listen with the volume turned low enough that I can hear the magpie choir and the leaves chuckling in the breeze. There's a lot of work in front of me, and I'm getting together a plan of how to accomplish everything. Seems like just about every time I come up with a big time and effort saving idea though, I end up expending more. As for this experiment, heavy winter rains have drenched the vineyard. When I place a cutting into the ground I'm met with plenty of water. The rains will continue for several months and there’s a risk that these cuttings might rot in the ground. Am I too early?

And you thought growing grapes was easy

Since the harvest the rains have been abundant, resulting in the establishment of a dense mat of weeds. Without chemicals or machinery it will require a massive effort to remove them. Our thick mulch will help somewhat with the broadleaves and the plain grasses, but the presence of kikuyu, Pennisetum clandestinum, a virile runner grass, will necessitate considerable hand labor.

Kikuyu grass is fiercely aggressive and persistent. It invades new territory by sending out stolons (runners), which climb over all obstacles, including other plants, and everywhere it goes, it develops dense networks of rhizomes (roots), which monopolize all available soil nutrients. This strategy enables it to establish itself very rapidly, outcompeting virtually all other plants. It grows so densely that it chokes out all challengers, plus it also produces its very own toxic herbicide, which further discourages any rivals, even if they are already established.

Some neighbors have burned it with flamethrowers. Most kill it with roundup. It can also be scraped up with earthmoving equipment (along with all the topsoil). But if even the smallest piece is left in the ground, it will start another plant. To remove it without damaging our soil involves meticulous hand weeding. But that is an arduous and very costly process. We will have to dig up and remove every particle of each individual plant, and carry it far away from the vines. If even the smallest piece snaps off, it can establish a new plant!

Such a tremendous expenditure of effort and resources may not be entirely efficacious. So I’m walking around in the night wondering if there is any other way to deal with it. One idea is to move some chickens in and feed them in the vines. Perhaps they will be able to scratch up the kikuyu. But once the buds pop we risk the entire crop, and our low cordon means that the buds will be in reach. We will have at least another month of winter, so it might be worth the risk…

And you thought grape growing was easy!

When the Cows Come Home

It is early morning and I have driven 2 ½ hours north of Margaret River to a beauty of a farm. It is set back where the scarp rises from the coastal plain and is well situated in a spot with abundant water. Even now, in early autumn, the fields carry great vibrancy and diversity, with a density of luxuriant grasses. The cows look exceptionally healthy and energetic as well, and it is no wonder - this farm is alive. I pull up to the barn and join a group of longtime biodynamic farmers, who are hard at work making the “500”, the critically important biodynamic preparation.

We labor filling cow horns with gorgeously scented manure freshly produced from their lactating cows which we then orient in circular patterns in a specially sited pit. They have designed a machine that extrudes the manure in such a way that it is possible to fill the horn much like filling an ice cream cone. But you have to keep up with it, because if you don’t, a pile of you-know-what will accumulate quickly. After a while I get the hang of it - tip of the horn down, held securely with one hand when placing each filled horn in the wheelbarrow and so forth. We actually are able to get into the swing of it enough to be able to carry on a conversation while we work. I turn into a question machine – the opportunity to learn from experienced farmers comes rarely. So I question and they reflect and time passes quickly. I learn tons – not just about how to make 500, but also insights about its application and effects.

We fill wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow, which then are ferried over to the pit. We establish a layer by placing the horns in tight circles, based on their proper orientation, one next to the other in an area approximately one meter by five. Each successive layer is covered with a thin topping of deliciously rich loam, which is wet down slightly with water. The next layer of horn is then arranged on that and the process is repeated. When a meter and a half pile of layers is completed, we move out and start another one, adjacent to the previous column. Finally everything is covered with tin sheeting for sun protection, secured by the weight of old tires.

The preparation will remain in the ground until early spring, at which point it will be sent out to many of the biodynamic farms in Western Australia, including ours. This particular pit is capable of producing enough preparation for 100,000 acres, although this year there is only a need to cover 20,000. Since Cloudburst is small scale, we will hand stir a small amount before applying it to our land and vines. We’ve applied this preparation since we began and our soil is integrated and vibrant. The health of this farm and their magnificent cows is further testimony to the validity of this practice.

The day passes quickly and I shower off and head down the road to the winery in the dwindling light. We will be pressing the juice off the skins tonight and I don’t want to miss a thing!

Rocking the Ferment

We picked our Cabernet Sauvignon on a coldish autumn day, and the grapes were still cold when they were crushed and pumped into open fermenters. We covered the fermenters with shadecloth secured by elastic to keep out dust and insects and left them resting overnight in the open air of the winery shed. It was a cool night and in the morning the ferment had barely begun.

The next day dawned slightly warmer and the ferment heated up a degree or so, but there wasn’t very strong activity. Apparently it was going to stay cold for a while so we ferried the fermenters into the warmer barrel room and that did the trick, for overnight it began to move. When the ferment was really going we brought it back outside into the open air. Every few hours the temperature rose just a bit more until the yeasts were happily cranking away.

Every day I returned at regular intervals to punch down the cap or pump over the juice, and take a sample to measure and taste. The smell and color and flavor intensified with each successive visit. It was a thrill to inhale the scent of this bubbling exuberance. With each successive visit I could feel it growing more deeply into its own distinctive personality. Several times a day I tasted. I tasted with my nose, my eyes, my ears, my mouth. My hands were purple with tasting!

It reminded me of the magical time of pregnancy, when at first there’s just the slightest inkling that something miraculous is developing, and then suddenly that something is brewing with a speed and rapidity and intelligence. From that early moment of a barely perceptible glow it proceeds through its enchanted stages and the days have a timeless celebratory fullness. Likewise, as I monitored the ferment, moment to moment movement was barely perceptible, but under the surface mysterious changes were rushing to an incredible conclusion.

After six days of this ripening, blossoming, deepening, thickening, rather than extract too much from the skins and seeds, we decided to press it off. It will finish the ferment off skins, simply as juice. I took a last sniff and taste as we prepared to shovel the skins into the press and was intoxicated again by the magnificence of it all.

What goes around, comes around...

After the crush I returned to the vineyard with the stems and potpourri of matter discarded at the sorting table. They will be composted and returned to the soil. The sun was slipping down behind the ridge, sending golden and orange and pink rays into the gathering clouds. A chilly breeze tickled the leaves of the now fruitless vines and I was struck by how different it is already. Like when the kids have first climbed onto the bus and the house feels empty and changed with the missing of them, the vineyard drew similar feelings from me. The energy had fully changed from outward to inward, from the exuberance of summer to the contemplation of autumn, all in a matter of hours.

That lone kangaroo was back, having a feast amongst the grapes that had dropped, and I opened the gates to welcome in any and sundry that wanted to glean. I stood there in the fading light gazing at this lovely spot where I spend so much of my days. The Cabernet’s leaves were dark and green in contrast to the fading yellow of the Chardonnay. Seasonal rains will soon be knocking the leaves down and the vines will be heading into dormancy. Everything moves.

The last of the sun reflected on the tops of the Marris as I headed back to the winery. The sun had equinoxed northward a week ago. The moon, which crossed the equator today, would be rising, virtually full, within the hour to bathe these emptied vines with its silver. And those lovely crushed grapes were resting in an open fermenter, gathering themselves for their alchemical transition.

The Sorting Table

There were eleven of us bent over the sorting table as the grape bunches hit the destemmer and began their vibrating dance towards the pump. Twenty-two sharp eyes and twenty-two vigilant hands, with one aim - to insure that only perfect grapes made it into the ferment. Our careful handpick assured that a minimum of leaves and foreign material made it to the winery mixed in with the grapes, but the sorting table takes that careful attention to the next level. This is the final chance to discover and remove anything that shouldn’t go into the wine that might have slipped past our scrutiny during the handpick.

We were mainly targeting anything green. Nothing escaped our watchful eyes and quick hands darting in to cull the odd stem that had evaded the destemmer, random petioles, a stray leaf, unripe berry, a snippet of cane. We removed anything but sound ripe grapes. Without foreign material, nothing interferes with the perfect expression of our incredibly healthy Cabernet Sauvignon fruit. It's painstaking work and costly, but the elegant end result makes it well worth it.

After passing across the sorting table, the juice and skins and seeds were then gently pumped into a large open steel fermenter, which had been thoroughly scoured and rinsed and inspected. Over the next several hours the precious liquid gurgled in and rose slowly towards the top. As it did, the faintest of smells greeted my curious sniffs –a clean and unpretentious odor of fresh fruit – not too sweet, not too green, just a simple pure smell. It was the smell of beginnings, the smell of promise, the smell of a miraculous transformation about to commence...

Recipe for Extraordinary Grape Harvest

With cool weather and potentially wet grapes, I scheduled the harvest a bit later than our customary sunrise pick, anticipating a possible need for things to dry out first. At sunrise patches of blue sparkled through the lifted cloud cover. Sure enough, the wind had dried things so thoroughly that it was as though the downpour had never occurred. What a relief! It was exhilarating to be out in the autumn morning with the light changing and clouds moving dramatically.

Our crew jumped to the tasks of preparing the vineyard in anticipation of the picking team, which would be arriving a bit later. The nets came off easily and my son headed off to pick what he could before leaving for school. The sky was opening now with drifts of clouds and the sun valiantly peeking through.

Soon everyone was bending to the task – literally, because our cordon is at a half-meter height, and the fruit was coming off quickly and easily. It was a lighthearted and celebratory time, with great energy going into the grapes on a lovely fall morning. We finished as the clouds broke apart completely and we could feel the sun. With great gratitude we ferried a most gorgeous collection of grapes up to the winery for the crush.

What We Do When We're Waiting to Harvest...

What a pretty restless time it was after canceling the pick! It was Monday morning and I became the classic Monday morning quarterback. Cloud after cloud rolled in from the Indian Ocean carrying drizzle, followed by a low grey blanket of clouds that tucked the region in with a denseness in the air. Repeat, drizzle, denseness, drizzle, denseness. Repeat elation at having not picked, despair, elation, despair. Yoyoville.

I squish through the fields to the vines for the third time and notice that the grapes are still dry beneath the canopy despite the downpour. Silvereyes are massed in the trees. A huge male kangaroo lopes lazily away at my approach. He’s harvested a little snack for himself, I notice as I readjust the bird net. I don’t remember his signing up for an allocation, but I’m delighted to share with him. We kept the fruit on an extra day just for him.

In the night the wind picks up and the rain pounds so hard, my heart pounds along. I go out into it, connect with its intensity and wonder whether the harvest will proceed in the morning. Sleep is utterly banished by the howling winds and the thought that maybe I’ve misjudged it. Have I jeopardized the entire season’s work by cancelling the pick? I pore over the radar and a stew of weather reports and go back and forth about it all. It looks like we will have a brief window in the midmorning, but will it be dry enough?

Soon enough the light comes up and the clouds have lifted. I’m noticing patches of sky! I rush out barefoot into grass that has been dried by the wind. It’s looking like a particularly perfect autumn day. A kookaburra has a good laugh and so do I. The grapes needed another day. They needed to taste the first autumn rains and a little bit of chilliness so that that could be in the wine along with everything else. 

With a lifted heart I head down to the harvest. 

Am I Picking in the Rain???

The rain is here and I welcome it, but it is the morning of the Cabernet harvest, so I’m hoping it blows over. We trudge through the drizzle to the vines by flashlight. The ocean is pounding. The cars of the vineyard crew are shushing in through the drizzle.

We set about removing the nets, getting soaked in the process. Miraculously the canopy of our close planting has kept the grapes dry. We distribute picking buckets face down so that no water gets in. As the light comes up the pickers arrive. And so does the rain, with force. With no air pollution, nor radiation, this is one of the cleanest rains on the planet. And we are Cloudburst, after all. But even so, do I want to risk diluting the wine?

My phone is ringing and texts are flying around the shire. Virtually every vineyard has canceled their pick today. But the clouds are lifting and we are ready to go! The nets are off, the light is up, and listen - the Silvereyes are massing expectantly in the trees. And suddenly the rain is pelting us and it’s clear that we aren’t picking today. We hurry to put the nets back in place and head off for dry clothes and a cup of tea.