Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Google Refine -a way to clean up and transform your data

I came across the online tool Google Refine the other day.

This is something like the search and replace function for data, only more powerful, and incorporating online resources.

Google acquired the technology from Freebase and its Gridworks software.

The tool allows you to manipulate data in both simple and sophisticated ways. Simple as in finding and replacing text and the like. Simple as in finding closely related entries in a spreadsheet and combining them with a few clicks of the mouse. Handy in finding typos in database entries and correcting them (I like this feature a lot!!).

More complex manipulations would be like taking information in a spreadsheet cell and using that to call up related information from the web, which can be added to the spreadsheet as additional columns. E.g., you could have a list of cities, and potentially query the web to get monthly temperature and rainfall data for each of them, without having to go through them all individually.

Mind you, this requires having the information available, and also it will require a bit of learning of the syntax required by the software to do the more complex manipulations, but on the other hand, it's a big step up from the functions available in the typical spreadsheet!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Wine Tasting commentary and notes -Lindauer Summer

Lindauer has always been a bright star for New Zealand's wine industry - partly because it was the most accessible sparkling wine in terms of price, but also because it was used as a loss leader for grocery stores, and could be had for $10, $9 or even $8 (almost half it's retail price!) a bottle! Amazing for a wine that is fermented in the bottle, and with 18 months of bottle age (it also ages very nicely in the bottle - we've had some really nice examples that had been sitting in the cellar for a year or more). At those prices, there is no better value in wine, sparkling or not, in New Zealand.

As a fan of the brand, I am concerned about the recent sale of Lindauer by Pernod Ricard to Lion Nathan New Zealand and Indevin, and hope that the production standards do not slip!

There is quite a range in the Lindauer brand - Sec, Rosé, Brut Cuvee, Fraise (a brilliant marketing design. Though I really don't like the stuff, it fits a market niche very nicely!) and more recently the Sauvignon (sparkling Sauvignon blanc), which I've tasted and think is pretty much spot-on for what a typical Marlborough Savvie drinker would want (not that it's my cup of tea, so to speak!!).

More recently, there has been a limited release in the form of Lindauer Summer, which is a sparkling Pinot gris made using fruit from Gisborne.

I know what to expect when I buy a bottle of New Zealand sparkling Sauvignon blanc, but what to make of this sparkling Pinot gris, when still wine versions of Pinot gris are all over the place in terms of style? There's only one way to find out! So... what's my take on it?

My tasting notes:

Nose:
Fresh apple (Jonagold variety, if you know it - one of my favourite apples!), honey, fresh plum and Queen Anne cherry

Palate: Nice fresh mousse, though not so fine a one. Good palate weight, with the flavour of sweet lemonade (e.g. Sprite carbonated drink or the like for those in North America that might be reading this!). Slight metallic character, but nothing too distinguishing in terms of flavour, except some Golden Delicious apple. Slight astringency, and a short length.

Note that this is not methode traditionelle, but a Pinot gris still wine that has been carbonated (like the Sauvignon). So a rough mousse is to be expected, as the complex of compounds that make a really fine mousse in bottle aged wines isn't there...

Overall opinion? I tweeted this comment about it:
"Drinking Lindauer Ltd Release "Summer" -Gissy Pinot gris sparkling wine. Verdict? Meh+. Not bad, not great, but keep up the experimentation!"

The slightly expanded version is that I like the fact that they're experimenting. I like that they're featuring a product made from Gisborne grapes, a region that has suffered a bit in recent years. I think they've made another product that will appeal to a segment of wine drinkers (personally, I don't think I'm in that segment), but I think it does suffer from an identity crisis.


The marketing does try to convey the limited availability and to some extent the wine style through the choice of the name, "Summer," but for me, it's not the sort of thirst-quenching drink I would expect for that name. IMO, it would need to have more acidity, and be more fruity.


However, I do applaud Pernod Ricard for putting this out in the marketplace, and I hope that they continue to do limited releases of different styles - always keep pushing the envelope!!


But of course, now it's no longer PR's job - it's in the hands of Lion Nathan NZ and Indevin! Keep up the innovation, please!!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Time for a pet peeve - Capitalisation of variety names!

Bear with me here!

One thing that the popular press seems to do is not capitalise the names of grapevine varieties.

Oh, sure, Glen, "big soap-box," you say... but this does really bother me!

In New Zealand it's rampant! Editors of the Christchurch Press, and related newspapers, enjoy a glass of "riesling," for example. The editors of the Listener will extol the virtues of the latest release of "sauvignon blanc."

And it's not limited to Australasia! The New York Times also finds it difficult to capitalise these proper names.

Thankfully, more rational heads prevail at JancisRobinson.com, where the real Pinot noir will stand up and be recognised!


In scientific publications, there is an effort to do the right thing and keep the capitalisation as it should be. The American Journal of Enology and Viticulture specifies that "for varietal names, the AJEV conforms to spellings listed in
the TTB listing of approved grape names for American wines
(http://www.ttb.gov/wine/wine-faq.shtml#w9)." This kinda takes it out of their hands, but at least it's an "official" source. And the US government uses capitals!!

But what about Europeans? How do they handle it?

For that, it's best to go straight to the source - the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (the OIV, http://www.oiv.int/uk/accueil/). They publish standards for viticulture and winemaking (for a more complete listing of their responsibilities, see this page), including such titles as the "Description of wine and grape varieties throughout the world," the "OIV descriptor list for grape varieties and Vitis species," and the "International list of vine varieties and their synonyms."

The latter of these, for example, lists names, all of which start with a capital letter - as proper names should!!

When you get to binomial names, such as Pinot noir and Cabernet Sauvignon, things get a bit more complex, with some people always capitalising both, some never capitalising the second of the names, and some doing a mixture, depending on what the variety name is. The OIV document has a mixture, for example.

So, is there a golden rule for capitalisation of variety names? Well, no. Sometimes in a two-part name the second name isn't capitalised.

But the first part of the name is _always_ capitalised!

Please, editors of the world, do the right thing and capitalise the names!! After all, how do you think people would react it if someone referred to barack obama, president of the united states of america??

Monday, September 13, 2010

Keep those old varieties!

Saw this article today, courtesy TizWine:

http://www.decanter.com/news/wine-news/499095/first-tasting-of-lost-grapes-in-southwest-france

It's nice to see that just because some varieties are not in vogue at the moment, people aren't necessarily discounting their worth!

It was not that long ago that Viognier was almost grubbed out of existence, with sources commonly stating that there were as little as eight acres of the variety left in France in the mid 60s. Now it is enjoying a renaissance with the New World wine countries, including New Zealand, experimenting with the grape and becoming quite successful...

Lesser-known varieties such as Sauvignon gris and Arneis are getting a mainstream chance, with reasonably large bottlings going on and being made available commercially (via Pernod-Ricard NZ Sauvignon gris and Arneis and Forrest Estate Arneis, respectively, to name a few -both varieties are worth trying - I've had the P-R Sauv gris and the Forrest Arneis).

So kudos to those around the world that are not following the wave and replacing all of the world's grape diversity with seas of Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay!

And to complete the circle, a thank you to all of you who go out and try a bottle of all these lesser known varieties! Unless it's sold and tried, we may lose some of these cultivars forever!


NB:
For an excellent resource on varietal names, have a look at the Super Gigantic Winegrape Glossary, which was put together by Anthony J. Hawkins. Sometimes entries are very detailed, but at the least, there's some interesting information in there!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

How low is low enough?

First of all, let me say how lucky I feel for my family and home to have made it through the Christchurch earthquake with so little effect - my best wishes go to those that were not so fortunate!

However, despite the 7.1 magnitude earthquake, the vines continue developing! And about 10 hours after it hit, we were out in the vineyard, finishing up the pruning! This because we're on a pretty warm site for Canterbury, and the buds were showing signs of pushing, making it more difficult to prune. At this stage, the buds start getting more susceptible to being rubbed off, so pulling brush can be a very time-consuming affair if they get too far along!

So once that was finished, I could put on a lime-sulfur spray, which should help control any carryover powdery mildew that could have been left as dormant hyphae on canes left for the coming season.

Powdery mildew infections on dormant canes - the dark blotches are areas where the fungal hyphae have gotten into the shoot tissue during the season

Then came the job of getting ready for spring frosts! This takes the form of mowing the cover crop as closely as possible, so that as much solar energy as possible can be absorbed during the day, and the also released at night. A higher growing cover crop can insulate the soil from gathering the sun's energy during the day, and also keep it from radiating that heat at night, causing an increased frost risk.

So as the grass was relatively high, I had to do a first pass, and then another cut with the mower.
Closeup of the first (upper third) and second pass (lower two-thirds) of the mower. You can see that I've cut the grass shorter than it's been in a while as it's more yellow than the grass in the background.

A longer view of the row (sorry for the "Batman" angle!). First pass on the right, and second on the left.

So we're still a ways away from budbreak (meaning green tissue visible on the buds), and therefore the most sensitive time for the shoots to freezing temperature, but even now they are starting to be more susceptible to frosts. I will be keeping the grass as short as possible over the next few months!!

Monday, August 23, 2010

GM vines out in the open? UPDATE

Back in May I noted a story that said that French researchers were trialling genetically modified vines outside.

Recently it was reported that the trial site had been vandalised. It turns out that they were testing some vines made to be more resistant to Grapevine Fanleaf virus (pdf information sheet from Western Australia here), which is a debilitating and non-curable disease found in many wine producing areas of the world.

The planting was destroyed, so it is a big setback for the evaluation of genetically modified vines.

With the challenges facing the human race, in terms of being able meet the demands for dramatic reductions in the use of pesticides while at the same time increasing the productivity of plants and their quality as well, there needs to be a considerable amount of  well informed and robust debate about the role that GMOs may have in our futures.

As far as I can tell, at the moment any debate going on is neither well informed, nor robust: something I hope changes, and soon!

Aussies wine woes

New Zealand is going through a rough patch, but Australia is too, and has been so for far longer.

Their overproduction problem has been a continuing one, and as mentioned on my Twitter account (@sabrosiavit -blatant plug! :-) there have been suggestions that tens of thousands of hectares of vines need to be ripped out to address the underlying issue - too many grapes in the ground!! A recent article says that some bulk grape growers are making just 27 cents on a bottle!!

But not only do they have the oversupply problem, they have issues with water supply, water salinity, and now, locusts??

Let's hope that the next step of the Plagues of Egypt doesn't take form for the wine industry there: Plague of Darkness!! :-)

Saturday, August 7, 2010

How wet is too wet?

As the rain pours out of the sky today (30mm so far), with the ground already being so wet, pools of water are appearing everywhere, most alarmingly, in the back and front yards!!

As our own vineyard is on a slope, we don't need to worry about waterlogged soil, and many other vineyards in New Zealand are on free-draining gravelly soils, again, where water-logging isn't usually a concern.

However, in some cases, water can accumulate in the soil profile to above field capacity to total saturation, where no air spaces are left. If the water is free-standing for a while, it's not much of a problem for grapevines, but if it goes on too long, the roots will suffocate!

This is most likely to happen in the winter months, although in the spring if the snow in the mountains melts too quickly, you may get rivers overflowing their banks. In New Zealand, we can get flash floods in some places with heavy rainfall, and also flooding as a result of a lot of rainfall, saturated soils, particularly those that don't drain well (e.g. high clay content).

The difference between a decent-draining soil and a horrible-draining soil. These are two posts that I set in the ground yesterday - they're concreted in, but on the left the water has drained away, but for the post on the right the water is just sitting there. For the hole on the right, from about 20cm and down what I was digging out was almost pure clay! About 7m separates the posts.

In California and Oregon, back when I was studying on the West Coast of the US, there were several times of flooding, which meant some vineyards (or treefruit crops) were in standing water for weeks, or even months at a time.

So how long can roots survive under water? They need oxygen for the process of respiration, but in the winter, when the roots and above-ground parts of the vine are in dormancy, there isn't much activity in the tissues, so the use of oxygen is very slow. There can be oxygen in the water as well (this is how fish "breath" under water), and the roots may be able to take advantage of this, but the oxygen in the water that's near the roots, once the oxygen is used, the only way to replenish it is to have new water that has been exposed to air. Down in the soil profile, this doesn't happen so often!

So there are a number of factors that can contribute to the amount of time that roots can tolerate flooded conditions, but I'm of the mind that a few weeks shouldn't harm the roots or vines. In most cases, the water won't stick around that long.

During that all-important site selection process, these sorts of things should be investigated!

Meanwhile, I'll be hoping that the rain stops soon!!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Recycling vineyard wastes

Fantastic news at this link:
Agrecovery introduces net recycling programme

There is now a way for growers to safely dispose of their bird netting as well pesticide containers and the like.

Side netting like this is quite common in a lot of growing areas. It's most effective in those places where the bird pressure isn't high.

This is a great addition to the recovery and recycling of irrigation tubing, which is also becoming more widepread.

Bird netting has a finite life, as even though the plastic is treated against the effects of UV radiation, it eventually will become more brittle and start to break. A lifespan of eight to ten years is possible, but often nets may not last this long if it's roughly handled. For example, if the vines grow up through the netting

It's very difficult to extract the shoots from the netting after harvest. This leads to tearing and a lot more stress on the net when it's taken up, so it may not last as long.

Having a viable option to recycle the nets is fantastic, and  I hope that it becomes available in all grape growing areas!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

International Cool Climate Symposium for Viticulture and Oenology

It's been an eventful month. I was visiting the USA for three out of the last four weeks. One of the reasons I went was to attend the Seventh International Cool Climate Symposium for Viticulture and Oenology, which was held in Seattle Washington. This was followed by the American Society for Enology and Viticulture's National Conference, also at the Washington State Convention Center.

It was a great one-two punch, with Lincoln University having a great presence through the four days, with a total of 10 abstracts, a mixture of talks and posters, representing research from LU's Centre for Viticulture and Oenology.

I made the most of the trip, presenting three posters and three talks, which reported on some of my masters students' research (on the use of crushed glass and mussel shells as reflective mulches (Olivia Ross, with a poster and a talk on those results) and also on soil type effects on Sauvignon blanc vine performance and fruit composition (a poster showing Melissa Sutherland work)) as well as some other projects I've done with students and colleagues (screening UV radiation from early season vine growth (a poster, with the project done with visiting French intern Cindy Bizet), rootstock effects on Chardonnay vine growth and fruit composition (a poster, with the research being that of myself, technician Gilbert Wells and students who have taken the HORT328 class at Lincoln Uni) and leaf area to crop load ratio effects on Pinot noir yield components and fruit composition (a talk, with most of the vineyard work done by student Michelle Pan, with Gilbert Wells helping out in the field work and with data analyses)).

Feedback was very good, and we also saw some great presentations, as well as having some stimulating conversations about all things viticultural (and beyond!). A most pleasurable way to spend a week, even though we were cooped up inside the Convention Centre instead of enjoying Seattle, the city!

I should mention that we stayed at the Inn at Virginia Mason (www.innatvirginiamason.com), which is a hotel attached to the Virginia Mason hospital. It's not the most modern of places, but it has real charm, and we did like its restaurant, The Rhododendron. It's also very convenient to the Convention Center, and the fabulous M Street Market (www.mstreetgrocery.com) is also only a couple of blocks away!

When I'm outside NZ, I usually look to see what NZ wines are available, so I couldn't resist snapping a picture of the M Street Market's selection:


Six wines, five of which were Sauvignon blancs and one Pinot noir. That's about the right ratio, I reckon!!

Prices ranged from USD10 for the Monkey Bay Savvie to USD17 for the Kim Crawford Savvie. The latter was even more expensive than the lone Pinot noir - Oyster Bay's, which was selling for USD16.

Also of note, all the Savvies save the Brancott Estate were 2009 vintage, with the Pernod Ricard wine being a 2008 year one. The Pinot noir was a 2008 as well.

These are reasonably expensive in comparison to a lot of California and European wines, but I'm pretty sure that what's inside the bottles would be worth it!!

Oh, and watch out for the 2010 vintage Savvies -they're set to be some really good drops!

Monday, June 14, 2010

Looking at the big picture

 The wine industry in New Zealand has been in a bit of strife recently. Exports and sales of wines have been going swimmingly, but the people planting vineyards were a bit too enthusiastic, resulting in the supply:demand ratio, which has been very low for a long time, swinging above the 1:1 mark, beginning with the 2008 vintage.

The result? Prices for New Zealand's darling 1000-pound gorilla, Sauvignon blanc, have dropped this past vintage to less than half of what they were two years ago.

Bad news - yes! But it's not like it wasn't foreseen. New Zealand Winegrowers were telling the industry before the 2008 vintage that they should be cautious about planting more vineyards, as though exports were increasing (albeit taking a hit from the global economic crisis), they were about to be outstripped by new vineyards coming into production. Their predictions came true, only more so, because the vintage was bigger than pretty much anyone had guessed.

So NZ Winegrowers, on their yearly post-vintage summary seminar series around the country, spelled it out: There's too much wine in the tank, we don't need another big vintage (this would be made worse by the fact that another couple of thousand hectares of grapes planted in years prior were going to start bearing in the 2009 vintage). We need to work at the markets to sell the 2008 vintage, while still retaining the country's very high-value position in the market.

Others in industry saw the writing on the wall, and with NZ Winegrowers, suggested that people cut down their crops for 2009 in the most painless way possible: at pruning. Instead of leaving four canes on their Savvie vines, leave three, or better yet, two! This means that potential crops are lower, so there wouldn't be the need to spend money on dropping crop later.

Needless to say, not everyone took the advice, and though the industry managed, partly through less-than-ideal conditions at fruit set, to bring in a vintage that was just the same amount as in 2008, there was a high cost to growers, who 1) had paid people to lay down four, instead of two, canes at pruning, then 2) had to pay people to take off crop before harvest to meet the more-stringent terms of the contracts that they had signed with the wineries.

The contracts changed as a result of 2008, and for good reason. Previously, contracts had been arranged so that the winery would take all the fruit off of a vineyard - not so unusual when the demand outstrips supply. In 2008, there ended up being a lot more grapes in the vineyard than the wineries had counted on, meaning that they lacked to capacity to process it all quickly enough, and also lacked the tank space to keep it in afterward. However, many wineries took in all the fruit. However, after one vintage of that, and realising that the market wasn't going to soak up all that wine easily, they re-wrote the contracts to say that they would buy only up to a certain tonnage of grapes off the vineyard - anything beyond that, and they didn't _have_ to buy it.

This was much better for the winery, as they then could plan to take in as much as they had the capacity to process, store and sell. And, I have to say, it was much more realistic for the growers, as the market for their grapes was no longer a bottomless pit. No one should say that they weren't aware of what was going on! For years Sauvignon blanc was getting far more than a realistic price for what it was - there was definitely an imbalance there that was eventually going to be corrected.

However, these new conditions do make things harder for the grape growers. Now, instead of a gentleman's agreement as to how much was going to come off the block, there was a exact number that they needed to hit. This is far trickier for grapes that you might think (yield prediction is another whole series of blog posts!!).

So in 2009, many more growers realised that the old days are gone, and a new way of looking at grape production was a reality. And though the industry really did pull together and bring down the size of the 2009 harvest, there was still a lot of work to be done. Exports were still growing, but the size of the 2008 harvest meant that there was still wine from that vintage to be sold, and also a lot of 2009. The good news was that the '09 wines were really good - better than the '08s. The bad news was it was getting harder to sell the '08s when the better '09s were coming.


So the New Zealand wine industry entered into a market that it really wasn't all that familiar with - bulk wine sales. Large volumes of wine began to trade hands at very inexpensive prices. It was starting to allow the industry to catch up in terms of supply and demand, but it was also eroding at the hard-won high-value image that New Zealand wines had developed over the past couple of decades.

So that brings us to vintage 2010. Another critical year for the industry. Another 1500 hectares of grapes were coming into production over the 2009 vintage, yet there was still a lot of wine in tank. To continue helping the supply:demand mix, the industry, in this case this meant the growers, needed to tighten their belts and produce a crop even lower than in 2009!

NZ Winegrowers were at the forefront of this push, delivering the message in a number of venues that in order for the Marlborough Sauvignon blanc to retain its highly sought after position in the international marketplace, yields must be kept down.

And do you know what? It looks like the industry may have done it. The final numbers aren't in yet, but it looks like the vintage will be a significant amount lower than in 2009.

As someone connected to the NZ wine industry, that makes me feel very proud! To have an industry filled with the range of large to smaller scale growers actually pull together, despite the economic hardship, and make a dent in the national production of winegrapes is phenomenal.

And how was this done? It was through the efforts and sacrifices of many, yes, but at the start of it all was NZ Winegrowers. They were the ones who were taking the "big picture" view of national production and how it was fitting into the global markets. They are the ones that went out and promoted the message that the industry, as a whole, needed to hunker down and get serious, for the benefit of the industry as a whole. They are the ones who looked at export and production projections and said we need to hit this particular target in 2010.

The unified nature of NZ Winegrowers is, I am of the firm opinion, a major reason why the NZ wine industry has been so successful. Unlike in other countries, we have had a single body representing the national industry for many years - this has provided a unified message to the rest of the world about New Zealand wine. Its generic marketing has allowed for a Brand New Zealand to be cultivated, which benefits behemoth Pernod Ricard and the little guys, such as the wineries in the Family of Twelve.

So this is why I get a bit miffed when I see headlines like this:

"Winegrowers warned after complaints"

"Winegrowers ticked off by Commerce Commission"

The articles make it sound as though NZ Winegrowers have been coercing growers into dropping crop. From my point of view, which I hope is now very clear, NZ Winegrowers has been make a very convincing case of reasons to limit crop, and people have had ample evidence that NZ Winegrowers knows what it's talking about after the 2009 vintage. The group has been doing what is best for the industry as a whole. They certainly have not been forcing people to drop crop! It is to this industry's credit as a whole that reason has been listened to, despite the hardship, and growers have pulled together to get the industry back on track.

My congratulations, and thanks, go out to all those who have heeded the call, made the hard decisions, and hopefully, will reap the benefits as soon as possible.

Monday, May 24, 2010

GM vines out in the open? In France??!?!?

The French Government has approved the establishment of a vineyard planted to genetically modified grapevines (http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/35781/).

GM vines have existed for many years, but always in contained areas. This move by the government is very significant, as everyone who has been working on GM vines has held off taking them to the next step in terms of evaluation, waiting for the French to move first, the idea being, if they do it they've got the best chance of selling it to the industry and public, opening to door to everyone else.

I'll be watching this one very closely!!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Winter setting in

Winter weather has finally come to Canterbury! I don't know if I should be happy because it's been so late coming, sad because in means an end to the Indian Summer!

However, with the wintery weather should come more rain. This isn't really so needed for the grapevines, but for the other farmers out there, it's well past due! Most grapevines around here are entering dormancy, which is evident from their leaves falling off and the shoots going brown, as the periderm formation is completed.

Dormant canes. The red-brown periderm is a protective layer for the canes. The colour of the canes will vary from variety to variety, with some being lighter than others. Pinot Meunier, for example, has a quite reddish colour to its cane compared to Pinot noir or Pinot gris.

The shoot tips may be green still, but with the first hard frost they will freeze and later fall off.

The dormant state is not necessary for normal grapevine growth, as if the weather was fine, the vines would continue growing. But, if you're looking to get synchronized crops so that the fruit can all be harvested at the same time, then having something to stop the current growth and then re-start it from the quiescent compound buds is needed.

The decreasing autumn temperatures are a signal for the vine to start getting ready for winter and freezing, or at least, not conducive to photosynthesis, temperatures. To do this, the vine breaks down as many compounds as it can in the leaves and transports them out into the shoots (now called the canes, since they've lost their leaves and the brown periderm has formed), trunk or roots.

The enzymatic powerhouses of the photosynthetic process (for example, Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase oxygenase (or rubisco), which may be the most abundant protein on the planet) are broken down into their component parts, amino acids, which are transported out of the leaf and converted into more storage-friendly forms in more permanent parts of the vine. Similarly, the green coloured chlorophyll, which harvests the light used in photosynthesis is also scavenged for reuse.

When these compounds are taken away, it exposes other things in the leaves, which remain because they cannot be broken down again. This includes some nicely coloured compounds, such as anthocyanins. So when the leaves are scenescing, the green of the chlorophyll disappears to reveal the other colours, which can be brilliant reds and yellows.

A photograph of the variety Grand Noir* near harvest. This variety is a tienturier type, which have berries that express red juice. The over-expression of anthocyanins carries through to the leaves as well, so they turn a bright red as the leaves scenesce.

This process happens in a lot of woody plants, which is what give some regions around the world their great autumn colours!



*(a.k.a Bahgha, Baga). Red-wine grape widely grown in the Bairada DOC, Beiras region of Portugal. It is apparently directly derived from an Aramon  x Petit Bouschet cross. Has several synonym names including Tinta Fina, Tinta Bairrada and Tinta Poeirinha. In France it has the synonym name Grand Noir. In its Portuguese home region it accounts for the vast majority of planted vines. Very susceptible to mildew/fungus diseases, requiring heat and clay-rich soils to thrive. Produces acidic, tannic wine blends capable of ageing well; especially the "garrafeira" (special reserve) versions.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Season is late, but nice weather hanging around!

Late season, yes, but it could be worse!

We've had a bit of an Indian Summer here, with a frost on April 10th, and then warm weather afterward.

While the season from September to January was miserably cool, with monthly temperatures being well below the long term average, February and March were slightly above average, and April is shaping up to be a decent month as well.

For those grapes that have kept their integrity through now, this is good news. We had 6mm of rain yesterday, but today was a nice warm and windy northwester, which has helped to dry out the clusters and should prevent an infection period for Botrytis from occurring.

There may be life yet in this difficult vintage for Canterbury!!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Curing virused vines?

I've just read some exciting news in the December/January issue of New Zealand Winegrower (yes, I know it's taken me a while to get around to reading it!! :-)

Some work being done by doctoral student Elaine Chan, Mike Pearson of the University of Auckland and Robin MacDiarmid of Plant and Food Research (pages 80-82) suggests that it might be possible to cure vines of virus diseases, or at least, be able to prevent virus from spreading from the infection point.

Viruses such as Grapevine Leafroll are major issues to grapegrowers around the world, so the thought that this might be able to be done is pretty fantastic! At the moment, infected vines are pulled out and replaced, and in some cases, the vines next to the infected one are removed as well, to lessen the possibility it may spread.

If researchers can figure out how to get plants to ramp up a defense mechanism against viruses, much as animals do, then the implications for grapegrowers would be tremendous (perhaps both pro and con!).

The idea is to duplicate the action of a protein in animals that signals the presence of viral agents. That protein would tell the surrounding tissue to stop making proteins, which the virus needs in order to replicate itself and spread through the rest of the plant. If that was done, then the plant could use other means to stop the virus from spreading from the infection point, say, by a hypersensitive response, where the tissue immediately surrounding the infection point dies, thereby isolating the virus. This response is well known in the area of fungal infections, for example.

They are also mooting the possibility that a plant equivalent of interferon could be developed, which would stimulate the plant to produce more of these signalling proteins and therefore stop the virus in its tracks.

These are not new ideas (see this article "Is there a plant interferon?"), but it's interesting to see that people are looking at this from the standpoint of grapevines.

If, and it's still a big "if" at this point, this was able to be accomplished, vines would be able to stop infection before it started, and infected vines could be cleansed of existing infection.  It remains to be seen if such a thing could be done with today's vines, or if new vines would need to be developed which have this capability.

As well, sometimes viruses can help to make better quality wine. The Mendoza clone of Chardonnay, for example, is thought to produce lots of the smaller berries it's well known for because it is infected with a mild strain of Leafroll virus. I'm sure there are other instances where the virus (or related "disease" organisms) may be holding back the natural vigour of vines, or changing the fruit morphology in some way that led to a clonal selection. Sometimes, you have to take the good with the bad!!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

What's happening in Marlborough?

Just got back from a tour through Marlborough with the Lincoln University Viticulture I students!

And an eventful time to be going through and talking with a number of people in the industry, working in large and small outfits.

Overall, the prognosis is good for the industry, in that regional yields are looking to come in slightly below the predicted total, which means there won't be an additional lump of wine to try to sell over the coming year. The other news is that everyone is really happy with the quality of the fruit coming in - the season was pretty cool, but the last weeks of the season have been ideal, and this combined with the lower crop loads (some by the effects of nature at fruit set, but some also due to people keeping crop loads down). Good news indeed!!

The big boys were in the early phases of harvest (getting close to 50% about now), but some of the smaller outfits (Fromm, Staete Landt) were pretty much through!

I've more detailed info (in snippet form) at http://twitter.com/sabrosiavit

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Post harvest activities

Well, harvest is done, the grapes have been pressed and the juice recently inoculated with yeast! The winemakers job has begun, but the viticulturists job continues!

I got out into the vineyard today to flush the irrigation system to ensure that the lines would be free of debris that could potentially clog the emitters. Once this is done, the vines got a nice six hour drink, at 1.2 litres per hour. This should be enough to wet the soil under the emitters to a good depth, and get water to the roots. The vines will now have access to plenty of water that should allow them to photosynthesise and store nutrients needed for next season's growth. Many leaves have yellowed by this point, but there are still lots of green leaves that can do useful work.

This is the first irrigation of the season, so in some ways, it is pretty unusual to have this happening after harvest!!

As well, I mowed the vineyard, which keeps walking down the rows pleasant, especially if you're doing it early in the morning or after a bit of rain.

If we're lucky, there will be another month and a half of useful photosynthesis going on. As temperatures fall in the late part of the season, the vines take this as a signal to get ready for winter, drop their leaves, and harden off the shoots. They become a lot less green and the shoots develop a brown periderm, which protects them from low temperatures and otherwise harsh conditions. Once the leaves have fallen off, we will call the shoots canes instead!

Monday, March 15, 2010

Harvest already?

Harvest is upon us!!

Yes, this is a bit early, but our vineyard was put in from the start to be the basis of sparkling wine (the most recognisable form of which is made in the Champagne region of France) production. The making of sparkling wine is more complex than normal still wine, and requires the grapes to be picked earlier than usual.

So while grapes for table wine might be picked at 25 degrees Brix (specialised term to represent the percentage sugar in them), grapes for sparkling wine might be picked at 18 degrees Brix.

As it turns out, our grapes were actually above that target, but that's okay, as the flavours were really nice for sparkling wine!

An advantage of growing grapes for sparkling wine is that since you harvest them earlier, there is less time for the grapes to be eaten by the birds, less chance that disease will get in there, and thus more time to relax!!

However, not all is complete. The nets need to be taken up, the vineyard mowed, and some water applied through the irrigation system. The latter, because we haven't actually needed to irrigate so far this year, will need to be flushed to make sure there isn't any gunk in there that could block the emitters.

Why irrigate? Well, it has been a while since we had any significant rain. By significant, I mean at least 25mm. So though we've had a few rain events in the past three months, they've all been less than that, so the soil is still pretty dry. I didn't want to apply water right before we harvested as that would have pumped up the berries with more water, which would have diluted the sugars, acids and flavours.

So now that the grapes are off, I can give the vines some water so that they have plenty to be able to photosynthesise lots, and therefore store some energy for next season.

As a side note, we did have about 10mm of rain right before harvest, which did have a significant effect on the berries. Based on some research I was part of in Oregon, this probably occurred by the water being absorbed directly into the berries, or into the leaves and stems, and then into the berries. Whatever happened, the morning right before we harvested the berries were plump and splitting as we were taking some off to sample. By the end of the afternoon (and a hot day!), the berries were no longer turgid.

As well, quite a few of the berries were deflating/shrivelling, caused by a crack in the berry skin. My theory on this is that the swelling of the berries caused some micro-fissures in the skin, which then ruined the integrity of the berry, causing the berries to shrivel as the day wore on and water was lost from them.

This made us very happy that we had decided to harvest, as the berries would not have been in very good shape later in the week!! It was definitely the right time to take them off!!

Friday, March 5, 2010

On and on about netting!

Ah, the netting saga continues!!

I spent the day putting netting on a rootstock trial, as we use the fruit for teaching, and also winemaking. The trial has been very interesting, as the rootstocks were chosen to represent a wide range of rootstock grapevine species, and the control is Chardonnay (Mendoza clone) grafted onto itself, as the graft union probably has an effect on the growth of the vine as well. Unfortunately, we don't have an ungrafted control in the block, as there wasn't room to include it as an eighth treatment (six different rootstocks and the control grafted Chardonnay).

Still, there are intriguing results, with the scion (Chardonnay) trunk circumference to rootstock trunk circumference ratios being quite different among the treatments. Curiously, the Chardonnay grafted onto itself is not resulting in a 1:1 ratio, but is actually the smallest - the scion trunk circumference is the much less than the rootstock's trunk circumference, even though they are the same plant material!

In any case, the netting, which is single over-the-row type netting that I've already put photos up of, is over the vines, and the three rows mostly clipped up. The worst of the bird damage was at the end of the rows that are closest to the Poplar tree windbreak. This is one of the reasons that viticulturists don't like having trees near the vineyard - they provide roosting areas and cover for birds!

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Netting -What a pain, but we have little choice!

Okay, the nets are on! With such a small vineyard, it didn't take all that long, but it is the clipping of the nets that takes a lot of time, and thank goodness we had wonderful friends that could help!


In the photo above you might be able to see that we have netting that goes over a single row, with the edges joined at the bottom. We roll them up and clip them in place with curtain hooks.

It's essential that there are no gaps in the netting, even very small ones, as birds are very clever and will search for any access point. 

One problem is that sometimes the net is resting against clusters that stick out into the row - birds can sit on the net in these places and peck at the fruit. So outriggers, or something that pushes the netting out away from the fruit, are sometimes used. Most often, some sort of horizontal support is used to push apart the first foliage wire, which then keeps the netting from getting too close to the fruit. We haven't done this at our vineyard yet - we're seeing how it goes, and will try to tuck shoots out to push the nets. If necessary, we will be fabricating some sort of stick to push out the foliage wires, and thus the nets. However, I'm hoping it doesn't come to that!!

Hopefully, this is the only view of the grapes that the birds will get!!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Prepping for harvest

After dealing to the powdery mildew in our little vineyard, there were a few things that we needed to get ready in the preparation for eventual harvesting!

The first order of the day was to give the vineyard cover crop a good mow! For me, this is mainly a comfort thing, as it's not that nice to walk through the vineyard if the grass is very tall. This is especially true if the grass is damp from morning dew!

As well as this, the shoots needed a general tidy-up, as they had grown a bit since the last time we were through, and were getting a little tall. This is despite it being not that long ago that we did the shoot topping and positioning. We had some rain recently, and the vines were responding with a fresh spurt of growth.

Then, as the grapes were just starting to colour up (Pinot noir and Pinot meunier), it was time to get the nets on.

Timing of this is a bit tricky, as if you put the nets on too early, the vines grow shoots and tendrils through the netting, which makes it a lot harder to take the net off after harvest, and the vine-y bits cause the netting to tangle.

If you put the nets on too late, the birds discover how yummy the grapes are, and they'll pick off the grapes as they are colouring up. If you're not looking closely, you might wander through the vineyard and think that veraison is being delayed, but in reality, all the coloured berries are being picked off by the birds, leaving little clue that ripening is at hand! As a result, you can lose a lot of crop! Also, if the birds discover the grapes, they will tell their family and friends, and in a matter of hours, decimate the crop of a vineyard.

So in putting on nets, it's better to err on the side of being too early!!

So that's what we've done - just a few berries are starting to turn, so we put the nets on last weekend.

 
Side netting being attached to the upper foliage wires. These lucky workers are the front line to defense against birds damaging the fruit!

The job is not done, however! We still need to finish clipping the nets - that is, making sure there are no holes in the netting that birds can get through. And they're very clever at getting through spaces you wouldn't think they could!!


Saturday, February 6, 2010

Powdery mildew

I've just been spraying our vines with sufur to control powdery mildew. This nasty disease, caused by the fungus Uncinula necator, infects green tissue on the vine, most commonly showing up on leaves, but also fruit and shoots.

Powdery mildew on a shoot pre-bloom. If the leaves are infected while young, you see this cupping of the leaf margins

Powdery mildew infection on a green shoot.


Powdery mildew infection on a dormant cane. The fungus cannot infect dormant vine material, so this problem came about during the growing season.

Control is through the application of sulfur, primarily, as this is a pretty soft compound for the environment. There are synthetic compounds available, the most common of which fall into the demethylation inhibitors (DMI) category. However, as long as the green tissue has a covering of sulfur, infection by the fungus is prevented. This requires repeated application through the season, to cover new growth, and also re-cover sulfur that has been washed off, or which has all volatilised. DMIs are great, but there is concern about resistance developing against them, so their use is limited to a certain number of applications per season.

It is the gaseous form of sulfur that is active against powdery mildew, so with heat, the solid sulfur is converted into sulfur dioxide (SO2). However, like with any disease spray, good coverage is essential!

Powdery mildew likes warm and dry conditions: in fact, heavy rain can help prevent infection by washing off the spores!

Careful monitoring for evidence of the disease, which usually starts in those places where the sulfur sprays can't reach (hence the need for good canopy management!), can delay the timing of the first and subsequent sprays, reducing their frequency. However, the disease is like an opportunist - miss one spray and it's likely to take over!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Seasonal update

As I'm back in New Zealand and haven't been here since the beginning of the growing season, one of the things I did was catch up on growing degree day (GDD) accumulation for Lincoln, Canterbury.

The concept of heat accumulation (one way of measuring which is GDD) and how plant growth corresponds with it is an important tenet of modelling the phenology, or seasonal development of plants, and in this case, grapevines.

It goes a little something like this:

Plants need heat to grow. At its most basic, this is because the enzymes that do the chemical work in plants can't function when it gets cold (in fact, this is true for animals as well -it's one of the reasons cold blooded animals hibernate in the winter. Warm blooded animals use energy to generate heat, which keeps the enzymes working). So below a certain temperature threshold, plants won't grow. As the temperature rises above that threshold the enzymes work faster and faster, up until the temperature gets so high as to prevent the enzymes from working again (around the mid 30s in celcius).

So measuring the accumulation of heat during the growing season results in a pretty good match of how far along the vines have come, or what stage they have gotten to. One question, though, is what do you set the temperature threshold at?

Based pretty much on enzyme activity in relation to temperature, 10C is the most commonly chosen base temperature (the temperature below which there is no plant-active heat accumulation). However, this may differ for different types of plants, and even for different times of the season (e.g. it seems that for the process of budbreak, a base temperature of 4C is omre appropriate, and for the first leaf appearances, 7C, Moncur et al. 1989).

Setting aside those special circumstances, a pretty straightforward way to quantify heat accumulation is to take the average temperature for a month (which falls within the growing season) and if it is greater than 10C, subtract 10 from it. That result is then multiplied by the number of days in the month, which gives the number of growing degree days for that month:

[ (average temperature for the month-10) * (number of days in the month) ] = GDD

In other words, on average each day was X amount over 10 degrees, and over the whole month, X times the number of days equals the amount of plant-useful heat that was experienced. Note that negative GDDs are not counted (though it's cold, the plants don't regress - they just sit there until it warms up again)

So to put some numbers in there, if the average temperature of November was 12.6C (as it was at Lincoln in 2009), 2.6C times the 30 days in the month equals 77 GDD accumulated.

If this value is calculated for each month of the year, we can follow the heat accumulation in a useful way, especially when comparing one year to another, or comparing on location to another.

In the case of the former, the graph for the 2009-2010 season looks like this, given the data collected up through November:

Growing degree calculations for the 2009-2010 season (up through November, the orange line) and for the long term average (LTA, the blue line), which is the average over the last 40 years.

The Long Term Average (LTA, blue) is the smooth sigmoidal curve, which signifies that heat accumuation is slower (the line is more horizontal) in the spring and autumn, and quicker (an more vertical line) during summer. The number in parentheses is the LTA GDD accumulation for Lincoln - a paltry 924GDD.

You can see that up to this point in the season, the orange line (current season) is below the LTA line, which means that the season has been cooler than average. If you squint just right, you can make out that the last orange dot corresponds to 77GDD, which is what we calculated above. This also means that there was no accumulation of plant-useful heat in October, or earlier in the season (at least, when based on monthly averages - more on that in another post!).

If you want to compare seasons, this way of looking at the data is fine, but if you want to see the differences more clearly, you can plot the current season's GDD relative to the LTA, which looks like this:

Growing degree calculations for the 2009-2010 season (orange) and for the LTA (the blue line, which is the X-axis). This figure is showing the same data as the previous one, but in a slightly different way.

Now it is pretty plain to see that we're veering away from the LTA. If the line is below zero (the LTA blue line), then there has been less heat accumulation than the LTA, and if it's above, there has been more, and it's been a warmer season.

You can also see more clearly what's happening for each month. If the line moves down, then the month has been cooler than LTA; if it slopes up, then it's been warmer. If the line is parallel to the LTA, then the average temperature for the month has been the same as the LTA.

So what we'd like to see is the line above the LTA - sadly, up through most of December, this has not been the case!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

China - the sleeping ice wine giant? (part 2)

And now for the continuation - How China has affected world ice wine production...

Ice wine is deliciously sweet, and due to the many things that have to go right for it to be produced (see part 1) and the low juice yield from the grapes, it is very expensive. So it is very sought after in many places, and also a target for counterfeiters. Some Niagara Peninsula producers were shocked to find that "icewine" was being sold under their brand in China.

There is, apparently, a lot of adulterated table wine being sold as icewine in China, which has a negative impact on the reputation of brands making it the right way, and therefore getting the special characteristics of the wine style that are so yummy.

However, that is not to say that all ice wine being made in China is fake! Changyu winery partnered up with a Canadian company some years ago to develop an expansive vineyard specifically for icewine production. Those Vidal vines are now coming into full production - all 5000 mu (about 333 hectares) of them (there is some confusion over the actual area planted. Some web sources say 5000 acres, but two signs I saw at Changyu say they have 5000 mu (1 mu = 0.067 ha)). The plan is to make icewine under similar conditions as required by the Canadian VQA system, and supply a quality product (Changyu Golden Valley Icewine) to the domestic market.

Changyu Golden Valley Icewine bottles on display at the Yantai International Wine Festival. These are the Golden Diamond wines. There are also two higher price point labels, the Blue Diamond and the Black Diamond ones. Prices for 500ml bottles were 228RMB, 418RMB and 838RMB, respectively. This translated into approximately USD33, 60 and 120, resp.


Some information about the icewine vineyard development. Picture taken in the Changyu Wine Museum, in Yantai, Shandong Province.

The location was chosen so that conditions for quality icewine production would be met most every year, and because the scale is so massive, that means a lot of wine can be produced!

A photo of a photo of the vineyard in Huanren - appropriately icy! Picture taken in the Changyu Wine Museum.

Even considering this is all in China, I still wonder about where they will get all the labour to tend the vines and harvest the fruit!

A photo of a photo of a "Hardworking farmers harvesting grapes in coldness." Picture taken in the Changyu Wine Museum.

And since China does things big, just how significant is this planting in Huanren? In 2008, about 6500 tonnes of grapes were registered for icewine production in the Niagara Peninsula. The Changyu development should produce about 1000 tonnes of grapes (significantly more come from vineyards other than theirs). So a significant boost. Even more significant when the latest info says that only 1750 tonnes were registered to be made into icewine for the 2009 vintage, due to a downturn in the icewine market.

While I'm not a huge fan of the wine style (too sweet for me, generally), it certainly has, and deserves, a place in the market, and is also a good reminder of how versatile a product the grape is!

NB, you might be interested in reading this article, which has more detail on the plantings in Huanren...