3. Today: “Today: “Beginning With The End In MindBeginning With The End In Mind””
• Defining ‘target’ wine characteristics and attributes
– “Absolute” vs. “Relative”
• Know the site: Soils, Climate, Plant materials
• Know the ‘tools’ available to drive the outcome for the wines
• Design vineyard and wine growing to meet the wine
objectives using the best ‘tools’
• Seasonal wine growing = “The Game Plan”
– Management is sensitive to
• “The Game Plan” & overall wine objectives above
• The season The “Plan” becomes Reality of season
4.
5. Training is VSP
Vine spacing (1.2 x 1.6 m) = (4.0 x 5.25 feet)
5,200 vines/ha = 2,112 vines/acre
7. Technology @ Vilafonté: “Appropriate for theTechnology @ Vilafonté: “Appropriate for the
time”time”
500 Million years ago
Current way to assess
soil variability – pre-
plant
8.
9. Key Wine Growing Issues for VilafonteKey Wine Growing Issues for Vilafonte
Soils
“Old” soils – highly weathered
Sub-surface drainage installed prior to planting
row orientation to facilitate drainage
“Vilafontes” is one of the soil types Vilafonté
10. Managing for wine characters and style:Managing for wine characters and style:
Training and pruning to set shoot number and position –
fruit display
Water management – time & amount-stress – Build
‘sufficient’ canopy
Leaf Water Potential (LWP) pressure bomb
Drainage
Crop control & Managing for uniformity of fruit ripening
Low yields per vine and good yields per hectare
7 tons/Ha = 1.4 Kg/vine (3.1 pounds per vine)
Intensity of character
Severe thinning fruit to ‘capacity’ of the shoots
Severe veraison thinning – achieve uniformly ripe fruit
11. Key Wine Growing Issues for VilafonteKey Wine Growing Issues for Vilafonte
Climate
“Mediterranean”
Winter rainfall area - about 25 - 30 inches (April –
September)
Low frost potential in the spring
“Mild” summers
Warm days and nights
Higher relative humidity vs. California – less vine stress
extremes
Somewhat more regular ripening weather
(more shallow diurnal temperature changes)
Long post-harvest time for vine-ripeness
Regular phenology
Approximately 105 – 110 days, bloom to harvest
13. Grape Vine Phenology Dates And Data:Grape Vine Phenology Dates And Data:
Some Practical Uses Within The Growing season:Some Practical Uses Within The Growing season:
• Phenology is your ‘timeline’ for the growing season
– Budburst to flowering is a ‘squishy’ number (heat limiting in spring)
– Other stages are very reproducible (heat saturated – in most “New World”
areas)
• Timing between events is very regular season-to-season
for a given site, variety and vineyard block
• Timing within an event is a measure of variability
– Number of elapsed days from 5% to 95%
• Net – you can project timing of vine events from your phenology data:
– Flowering dates and fungicide sprays
– Cutoff date for last sulfur application to avoid residue on fruit
– Water management – choose a stress level (severity) and (time) to hit this level
– When you need to do veraison thinning
– Harvest timing
– French plan their summer vacations!
18. Dealing With The Natural Variability OfDealing With The Natural Variability Of
VineyardsVineyards
• Weak shoots
• Veraison thinning
• Selective harvest of sub-areas to achieve uniform lots
• Berry sorting at the winery after de-stemming
30. The Vine: Uneven Fruit RipeningThe Vine: Uneven Fruit Ripening
• Non-uniform ripening of fruit is probably a large positive benefit for better
evolutionary competition
– More chances to have animals feed on some of the berries as they come ripe:
• Better chance of ripening in the migration time of birds
– Better chance of surviving different climate conditions
• Non-uniform ripening is not positive for winemaking objectives!
– Lack of ‘focus’ of aroma and flavor – mixed berry characters
• Variations within:
– Vineyard – area to area
– Vine – bunch to bunch
– Cluster – berry to berry
31. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index = NDVINormalized Difference Vegetation Index = NDVI
(Spatial Variation of Vegetative Index)(Spatial Variation of Vegetative Index)
Notas del editor
Weak shoots and irregular ripening
A built in survival technique for the vines, not have all fruit ripen at same time
Seed ripeness and propagation of the vines – wide window of opportunity for birds, etc.
Role of verasion thinning
@ 1.5 Brix per week
2 week wide window of flowering to minimum of 3 Brix wide window
To get average Brix right = field sample
Must have some very over-ripe fruit
Field sample is a mixture of under and over-ripe fruit
Effects of unripe fruit in the mix of ripe fruit
Action is to remove the unripe = green fruit in reds
At about 85% coloring, drop out the green fruit
If crop is large, do your crop thinning at this time
Assumes the vine is not grossly overcropped
All weak shoot fruit is off already – get it early when less time critical
This work is time-critical, lot of acres to cover in few days
Do a variability study
