Time to update on the activities in the vineyard in 2016. After the disappointing year last year I was hoping that this year was going to be the one that proved that this little project was worthwhile. It didn’t get off to a great start.
The Solaris vines got hit by a late frost:
And the Phoenix vines had a lot of non-fruiting shoots.
Slightly despondent, I took my eye off the vines almost completely while I carried on with the beer side of things – at least that is going well, with a few successful brews under my belt.
In September I visited Frithsden Vineyard which makes wines from both Solaris and Phoenix grapes. It was great to try out their wines which were delicious, and to get some idea of what my wines could possibly taste like – if only I could get a decent harvest. It was also very interesting to see that they use a high wire trellising method, and on some of their vines use a Geneva Double Curtain, which basically means that the vines hang downwards on double rows, with vines planted only 3 feet apart instead of the usual 6 feet.
I suddenly had new enthusiasm to adopt this in my vineyard, which would mean twice the yield (hopefully) and in theory should help with frost protection by keeping the main shoots much higher off the ground. I can’t start changing anything until the winter and it would take a few years to get everything re-trained, but this is at least something new to try!
The harvest of the Solaris grapes happened on 15th September, and due to the frost back in April was pretty small.
Only 2.2 kg of grapes, which produced about a litre of wine. On a positive note, the stats for the grape juice were good, with a SG of 1.084 (potential ABV of 11.4%) and a TA of 0.96%. This meant I had to make no adjustments. I pitched using Champagne yeast and fermented at a nice cool 16°C.
Fermentation took about 2-3 weeks, and after a month was crystal clear. Rather than racking I decided to bottle it. I filled 1 bottle and drank the rest, which I thought was pretty good. I have yet to get my panel of tasters to try it out.
Meanwhile, I harvested the Orion and Phoenix grapes together on 10th October. This was slightly earlier than planned for the Orion but the birds had started on them and they were disappearing fast. Due to such a low yield of Phoenix I blended them together to produce 3 litres of juice (SG 1.070 and TA 0.83%) which required a little sugar to bring the gravity up. I pitched this with Champagne yeast as well, and is currently bubbling away happily at 16°C.
This winter I plan to cut down the varieties to one or two (based on the outcome of the tastings), take lots of cutting for propagation and start the re-training to a high wire double curtain system.