Page 18 - Tesco Wine Club Magazine - March

The wine-maker’s year: spring
For someone who grows grapes and makes wine, every season brings its
own unique set of
events and challenges, as I’ll be outlining in this new
series of articles. Pierpaolo Petrassi, MW.
In the vineyard
Anyone visiting a vineyard in Europe or North America around this time of year can witness one of the great sights of nature. Vines that only a few weeks ago appeared brown and lifeless, with just a few woody branches and twigs, will once again be showing signs of life.
First, sap begins to emerge from the places where the vine was pruned over the winter months. Next, small green buds start to appear along the growing canes. Then as we go into April, shoots and leaves will begin to emerge from the buds, followed by miniature bunches of flower buds in early May.
This makes frost a real danger at this time of year: if temperatures drop below 1°C then the little green buds will simply fall off. The buds are fledgling grapes, so frost could spell the loss of the crop. It’s no
surprise therefore that frost prone regions
such as Bordeaux and Burgundy employ
every frost protection method possible,
from small portable heaters in the vineyards
to helicopters that hover over the vineyards
to break up the air.
With vines springing back to life in the vineyard, this is an exciting and crucial time for wine-makers in the Northern Hemisphere.
In the cellar
Wines made from grapes harvested last autumn will have finished fermenting over the winter and many will still be sitting in either stainless steel tanks or oak barrels in the cellar. Most reds and whites being kept in oak barrels will probably remain there for a few more months or even years. However, wines that are best enjoyed young and fresh are now ready to be bottled. This includes everything from Italian Pinot Grigio to French Sauvignon Blanc and Spanish Albariño.
Small wineries will often do their own bottling in the cellar, straight from the cask. Those that can’t afford the equipment make use of mobile bottling trucks; a familiar site on the back-roads of Europe at this time of year. One thing is for certain: the vintage printed on the label always refers to the year the grapes were picked, not the year it was bottled.
What’s going on down under?
The Southern Hemisphere harvest usually takes place around this time of year, which is why the New World is always first with the latest vintage. Look out for 2010 in the next few months.
The exact timing of the harvest can be an agonising decision. Pick too early and the grapes may not be ripe enough; leave it too late and a sudden downpour may wash the
crop away. It’s a yearly dilemma in Australia’s Limestone Coast, where wine-makers coax every degree of flavour from late-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon
while dodging the frequent rain at harvest time. These days a decision can be made instantly, as modern mechanical harvesters will pick around 5 tons per hour, a job that
would require calling on 100 hand pickers.
Frost protection netting in Chablis.
As they’re roughly six months ahead of us, wine-makers in the Southern Hemisphere are getting ready for this year’s harvest.
18 March 2010 Tesco Wine Club Magazine