Oh, after a wine sopping good time over the modern Latin based pagan ritualised consumer holiday that we experience in summer it was time for a bit of the ole DE-TOX.
Here's the farm score card:
to January 15th...Vines - Excellent growth...Lovely grape set...Chardonnay looking stunning (again)...Sauvignon Blanc (for Kevin) still in the pea stage,
Apples - Great color and good fruit set in the Golden Delicious...Royal Gala are yummy...And the Pink Lady's are off to the juicers because of the fungal rot due to the HUGE rain in November;
Feb 1st...Vines - Fantastic growth in the Chard (5 tons a Hectare min) with Balling at 17.7 yesterday...Sauvignon Blanc is sitting with 9 tons and a balling of 13.5 grass green...Viognier is to quote two separate winemakers (the labels sound like "Sataraxea" "Aumabridge") "Bloody beautiful"...Syrah hasn't fully started verasion yet but looking at 3 to 4 tons a Ha.
Apples - Ready to pick on Wednesday the Royal and Golden's.
Baboons, Buck and Birds - We bought 7 Meerkats (now called Eagle Eye's legally) to dissuade the birds from entering the vines...they work alright...Installing first Mirror ball in the Big block on Monday...and now have a source for a 2 meter diameter mirror ball for the Cab Franc! If they don't run from that damn thing they'll at least take a while to learn to s(h)it on it.
Holidays are flippen over and though I could use a nice glass of wine I'm trying to clear my palate to give it the greatest chance of harvesting the best grapes.
Besides, at the end of the day I'm really only waiting for the paradise stage in the viognier when I can sip a glass of perfection once a day for a month.
Love,
Jake
"TIIIIIIIME IS ON MY SIDE"
Is it?
Does time exist?
Well in some instances time may well exist as a construct of our changing seasons and the global climate change. Winter rainfall area 15 years ago to summer rainfall area now.
Why I haven't written in so long is complex and disturbing. Disturbing because I was near to my computer but unable to write. And, complex, because I have been interacting with the weather (read, "standing in the middle of a river waving a plastic napkin at a flood...no, seriously, I've been wet with no hope of the concept of dry").
Ok. Lets travel back in time...you imagine funny music playing and I'll see Wayne and Garth waving their hands and singing...here we go... its the end (my typically late posting time) of November (20th of) 2007. Samantha goes to Cape Town to meet with accountants. I stay on the farm to handle the weeds and continue pruning vines and apples. Tuesday afternoon it starts to rain. Rain at this time of year is usually interesting but not overly harmful or damaging...hail sometimes happens in the valley areas but normally we have none of the damage associated with heavy spring rainfall.
It rains.
Then, it rains with real intent. We're talking about raining on a tin roof with a vibrancy more commonly associated with a drunk composer playing a harp (think Japanese modern musica Art and engage John Cage's maxim that "all noise is music, unless you don't like it and then it simply becomes noise for you").
Are you doing this...ok...now turn up the volume to pre 1990's Van Halen rock concert level and you'll begin to understand the increased level of "music" the heavens were releasing.
Typically we've all had this sort of "wow its raining very hard" moment and then feel like a twit for having thought that phrase, because, really, its only rain.
Then it didn't stop raining all night.
Wednesday morning. Same rain. Maybe harder, but never less. Checked the rain gauge. Full. dumped it...two hours later...full again...three hours later...full again...
That was 300+ mm of rain in +/- 20 hours (6pm Tuesday Afternoon to 2pm Wednesday).
I stopped checking the gauge and started moving around the farm to see if I still had access to the dam, the roads, the vines and the apples. The Pump at our small river is far from the water. The roads are fine. The Dam is filling. In general things are ok for having received so much rain so fast...By The Way, have I mentioned that the rain does not stop at any point during this entire "check the farm" period. It's now four in the afternoon and it rains a little less. I take the kids for a walk and we all are soaked through before we arrive at the dam (less than 100 mtrs away). I abandon all hope of stopping them from getting too wet and engage the puddles and rain with as much joy as they do...I should have taken it more seriously.
We return to the house and only just in time as the heavens open up, again.
I don't really sleep. I toss and turn all night. I forget about the rain gauge. And think only about the vines, the apples and the pump.
Thursday morning. Still raining.
Take the pick-up for a spin in the mud. Get it firmly locked into a donga of note. Tractor will get it out in a day.
Pump still there but water is rising fast and I no longer have a way of removing it. I walk to the end of the farm. The creek/river level has risen substantially. It now spans 25 meters. And, is moving at about 100,000 liters a second (this amount is measured by multiplying width, depth, 1 meter distance, and counting to ten...). The main "Without End" river is higher than the highest point ever recorded. the surge of water has created an island of our area. We remain "cut off" from the rest of the country and are accessable only by helicopter. Since Wednesday we'd been cut off from everyone else. The bridge outside of Greyton (built to withstand a 300 year flood) is made into an island. A mate of ours, Brent Cadle, takes a phone vid of a 50' Oak tree speeding merrily down a full flood river at about 30mph. In Greyton, houses (and silly bowling green inanity) get flooded and washed clean with a scouring layer of mud.
It starts to rain a little more at the house, but not on the main road. One neighbour has 35 hectare under 2 meters of water. Another has 16 hectare under a meter of water. Yet another still, has lost 1200 sheep and will have to sell their farm. One's tourist area on the riverside is washed away and he cannot spray his apples on the hillsides for all the sliding the tractors are doing.
My apples have a river running under them. A thin sheet of water that unless you're standing in it you cannot see. the water table under the trees has risen to 3 cm from the surface. Puncture it and you sink two meters deep. Jump on the ground and it moves in waves like a stone in a pond. Trees rise and fall like high wire artists on terra firma. I go back to the house.
The small house has a thin layer of mud on the floor.
The pump...well I forgot about the pump. Good thing, too.
Friday morning.
Sam drives back to within a kilometer of the house. We dislodge the bakkie. We see our pump gone...just a broken pipe leading to a deep pool of water where there used to be a weir of sorts. The river is still in full flood (well full flood as per last year's 100 year flood) a day after the rain stopped.
Saturday. I tried to spray the apples. Got one tractor stuck in the mud. Got a neighbours Huge tractor stuck in the mud. Then we got his bulldozer stuck. (Its still there December 18th, 2007.)
That night I was late to a wine tasting and dinner because of the tractors and bulldozer. Somehow wine schmoozing was not high on my list of "things to do". But, the Oak n Vigne being the fantastic venue it is, put on a great wine tasting and I was one of, an albeit extremely late, full house of sozzled personages. Was a great cap to a rough week. Sam of course was the belle of the ball and WOW'd the crowd with her passion and knowledge.
Then, just for fun, it rained two days later and freaked everyone out but good.
Love,
Jake
P.S. The vines are fine. The apples are...covered in russett/fusciladium. Motto from all the farmers in the valley...plant on the hillsides. This area is officially, now, a summer rainfall area, per the department of agriculture...and we're only 2 hours from Cape Town, which is a winter rainfall area. I love "the global warming"...NOT!
Does time exist?
Well in some instances time may well exist as a construct of our changing seasons and the global climate change. Winter rainfall area 15 years ago to summer rainfall area now.
Why I haven't written in so long is complex and disturbing. Disturbing because I was near to my computer but unable to write. And, complex, because I have been interacting with the weather (read, "standing in the middle of a river waving a plastic napkin at a flood...no, seriously, I've been wet with no hope of the concept of dry").
Ok. Lets travel back in time...you imagine funny music playing and I'll see Wayne and Garth waving their hands and singing...here we go... its the end (my typically late posting time) of November (20th of) 2007. Samantha goes to Cape Town to meet with accountants. I stay on the farm to handle the weeds and continue pruning vines and apples. Tuesday afternoon it starts to rain. Rain at this time of year is usually interesting but not overly harmful or damaging...hail sometimes happens in the valley areas but normally we have none of the damage associated with heavy spring rainfall.
It rains.
It rains. And, it rains.
Then funny thing is, it rains more.
And more.
And more.
And more.
Then, from out of the blue, it rains harder.
We're both imagining real rain. The kind of rain one would associate with South East Asia.Then, it rains with real intent. We're talking about raining on a tin roof with a vibrancy more commonly associated with a drunk composer playing a harp (think Japanese modern musica Art and engage John Cage's maxim that "all noise is music, unless you don't like it and then it simply becomes noise for you").
Are you doing this...ok...now turn up the volume to pre 1990's Van Halen rock concert level and you'll begin to understand the increased level of "music" the heavens were releasing.
Typically we've all had this sort of "wow its raining very hard" moment and then feel like a twit for having thought that phrase, because, really, its only rain.
Then it didn't stop raining all night.
Wednesday morning. Same rain. Maybe harder, but never less. Checked the rain gauge. Full. dumped it...two hours later...full again...three hours later...full again...
That was 300+ mm of rain in +/- 20 hours (6pm Tuesday Afternoon to 2pm Wednesday).
I stopped checking the gauge and started moving around the farm to see if I still had access to the dam, the roads, the vines and the apples. The Pump at our small river is far from the water. The roads are fine. The Dam is filling. In general things are ok for having received so much rain so fast...By The Way, have I mentioned that the rain does not stop at any point during this entire "check the farm" period. It's now four in the afternoon and it rains a little less. I take the kids for a walk and we all are soaked through before we arrive at the dam (less than 100 mtrs away). I abandon all hope of stopping them from getting too wet and engage the puddles and rain with as much joy as they do...I should have taken it more seriously.
We return to the house and only just in time as the heavens open up, again.
I don't really sleep. I toss and turn all night. I forget about the rain gauge. And think only about the vines, the apples and the pump.
Thursday morning. Still raining.
Take the pick-up for a spin in the mud. Get it firmly locked into a donga of note. Tractor will get it out in a day.
Pump still there but water is rising fast and I no longer have a way of removing it. I walk to the end of the farm. The creek/river level has risen substantially. It now spans 25 meters. And, is moving at about 100,000 liters a second (this amount is measured by multiplying width, depth, 1 meter distance, and counting to ten...). The main "Without End" river is higher than the highest point ever recorded. the surge of water has created an island of our area. We remain "cut off" from the rest of the country and are accessable only by helicopter. Since Wednesday we'd been cut off from everyone else. The bridge outside of Greyton (built to withstand a 300 year flood) is made into an island. A mate of ours, Brent Cadle, takes a phone vid of a 50' Oak tree speeding merrily down a full flood river at about 30mph. In Greyton, houses (and silly bowling green inanity) get flooded and washed clean with a scouring layer of mud.
It starts to rain a little more at the house, but not on the main road. One neighbour has 35 hectare under 2 meters of water. Another has 16 hectare under a meter of water. Yet another still, has lost 1200 sheep and will have to sell their farm. One's tourist area on the riverside is washed away and he cannot spray his apples on the hillsides for all the sliding the tractors are doing.
My apples have a river running under them. A thin sheet of water that unless you're standing in it you cannot see. the water table under the trees has risen to 3 cm from the surface. Puncture it and you sink two meters deep. Jump on the ground and it moves in waves like a stone in a pond. Trees rise and fall like high wire artists on terra firma. I go back to the house.
The small house has a thin layer of mud on the floor.
The pump...well I forgot about the pump. Good thing, too.
Friday morning.
Sam drives back to within a kilometer of the house. We dislodge the bakkie. We see our pump gone...just a broken pipe leading to a deep pool of water where there used to be a weir of sorts. The river is still in full flood (well full flood as per last year's 100 year flood) a day after the rain stopped.
Saturday. I tried to spray the apples. Got one tractor stuck in the mud. Got a neighbours Huge tractor stuck in the mud. Then we got his bulldozer stuck. (Its still there December 18th, 2007.)
That night I was late to a wine tasting and dinner because of the tractors and bulldozer. Somehow wine schmoozing was not high on my list of "things to do". But, the Oak n Vigne being the fantastic venue it is, put on a great wine tasting and I was one of, an albeit extremely late, full house of sozzled personages. Was a great cap to a rough week. Sam of course was the belle of the ball and WOW'd the crowd with her passion and knowledge.
Then, just for fun, it rained two days later and freaked everyone out but good.
Love,
Jake
P.S. The vines are fine. The apples are...covered in russett/fusciladium. Motto from all the farmers in the valley...plant on the hillsides. This area is officially, now, a summer rainfall area, per the department of agriculture...and we're only 2 hours from Cape Town, which is a winter rainfall area. I love "the global warming"...NOT!
Summer-time summer-time summ summ summe...oh, wait...still winter? Snow in October.
SNOW.
An old Greytonian (not at all like an old Etonian in any way other than they both do a bit too much of the arm wagging Anglican thing which was so superbly illustrated by Eddie Izzard) told me, last May, that Greyton is likely to have snow in any month of the year but never in more than three in one year.
2007...May, June, July, August, September, October...that makes six. It has been a cold, colder and one of the coldest winters. Not wet like the rest of the Southern Cape, just cold.
The big "bummer" is the length of the Chardonnay shoots. The size of the newly formed bunches. What does cold do to new growth. Shorten the nodal lengths. Cause the basil buds to move backwards. Decrease harvest in the coming years.
The growth cycle for this season may be completely wonky after all the money spent on the nasty wee bud-break chemicals. All of the work may well fall afoul of this cold spring. No Frost, but snow...which properties do snow and frost share…hmmm...water...cold...tenacity...stick-to-itive-ness...lets just cross our fingers and hope for the...no...no hoping...Call the chemical rep and the viticultural genius...Andrew Teubes.
Time’s wasting.
More soon...
with, love,
Jake
An old Greytonian (not at all like an old Etonian in any way other than they both do a bit too much of the arm wagging Anglican thing which was so superbly illustrated by Eddie Izzard) told me, last May, that Greyton is likely to have snow in any month of the year but never in more than three in one year.
2007...May, June, July, August, September, October...that makes six. It has been a cold, colder and one of the coldest winters. Not wet like the rest of the Southern Cape, just cold.
The big "bummer" is the length of the Chardonnay shoots. The size of the newly formed bunches. What does cold do to new growth. Shorten the nodal lengths. Cause the basil buds to move backwards. Decrease harvest in the coming years.
The growth cycle for this season may be completely wonky after all the money spent on the nasty wee bud-break chemicals. All of the work may well fall afoul of this cold spring. No Frost, but snow...which properties do snow and frost share…hmmm...water...cold...tenacity...stick-to-itive-ness...lets just cross our fingers and hope for the...no...no hoping...Call the chemical rep and the viticultural genius...Andrew Teubes.
Time’s wasting.
More soon...
with, love,
Jake
Spring. Chardonnay shoots at 20 cm.
There were moments this winter when I thought I'd lost every vine.
A wild Scotsman on the west coast told me that for his first eight seasons he was sure he'd killed everything each winter. Then he planted another 30 Ha on a different farm and went through the same process for another five years.
Our god-send of a viticulturalist Mr. A. Teubes (for now we call him "King of All Vines") laughs at me each July when I call him because I'm sure I've got woolly buds when I should be spraying bud break...he then tells me to relax and I send him a cell phone pic of the buds...then he laughs and tell me to wait another two weeks before spraying...he's been right for four years. But what did I do this year, I panicked for two weeks.
In a way we panic from just prior to bud burst, into the flowering, into the fruit set, the green drop, the rising sugar levels and in truth through the length and breadth of the whole season…until well into winter.
So why do we do this silly madness? Is it fun? Is it wonderful to live so close to the land? We love Baboons? Flocks of thousands of red wing starlings make my heart soar? I enjoy 2am to 4am for strolling around the house and re-filing my cd collection? I like watching “The Dirty Dozen”, again (I’m currently on viewing number 247)?
We "do this" madness for many reasons mostly though we're proud to give something back to the world that has no additives and cannot be made in a Chinese factory and really, THE WINE IS SO GOOD. We "do this" simply and plainly, for the wine.
It is about the place. It is about the climate. It is about the vine. Mostly though, its about those little grape bunches. Perfect and un-irrigated. The soil and sunlight transformed into wine.
With that,
I'm off to have a glass of 2006 summer-time sunlight.
Love,
Jake
A wild Scotsman on the west coast told me that for his first eight seasons he was sure he'd killed everything each winter. Then he planted another 30 Ha on a different farm and went through the same process for another five years.
Our god-send of a viticulturalist Mr. A. Teubes (for now we call him "King of All Vines") laughs at me each July when I call him because I'm sure I've got woolly buds when I should be spraying bud break...he then tells me to relax and I send him a cell phone pic of the buds...then he laughs and tell me to wait another two weeks before spraying...he's been right for four years. But what did I do this year, I panicked for two weeks.
In a way we panic from just prior to bud burst, into the flowering, into the fruit set, the green drop, the rising sugar levels and in truth through the length and breadth of the whole season…until well into winter.
So why do we do this silly madness? Is it fun? Is it wonderful to live so close to the land? We love Baboons? Flocks of thousands of red wing starlings make my heart soar? I enjoy 2am to 4am for strolling around the house and re-filing my cd collection? I like watching “The Dirty Dozen”, again (I’m currently on viewing number 247)?
We "do this" madness for many reasons mostly though we're proud to give something back to the world that has no additives and cannot be made in a Chinese factory and really, THE WINE IS SO GOOD. We "do this" simply and plainly, for the wine.
It is about the place. It is about the climate. It is about the vine. Mostly though, its about those little grape bunches. Perfect and un-irrigated. The soil and sunlight transformed into wine.
With that,
I'm off to have a glass of 2006 summer-time sunlight.
Love,
Jake
We're pruning, getting ready to bottle, selling stock, cleaning babies tukii (plural of tukus)...
Teddy Roosevelt said, "Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."
Planting vines, growing grapes, wine-making and wine maturation all follow those lines so closely that to distinguish a "made" wine from a picked wine is harder and harder to do...
Pick the ultimate Viognier and watch as the barrel spoils the party. Pick Shiraz too early and taste the weedy green tannins in the un-fermented juice. Pick a red too late and force yourself to re-hydrate so your alcohol levels match industry norms. Plant Chardonnay in the wind and watch as your whole crop flies away in the first big October wind. Success though is elusive and dangerous.
Elusive because everyone in the industry is shooting for the same magic. Dangerous because then you must recreate the magical situation that you encountered in the year you last made the wine.
So better still to make different wines every year. Make 42 different labels of wine and hide in the anonymity of the multitude of different styles and varietals. Why make two or four wines. Why subject yourself to the scrutiny of the one land one wine terrior test.
We tried and succeeded with the Chardonnay. This year we're coaxing the barrels and playing wonderful music to eek out the same flavours and layers that the 2006 Chardonnay is showing. The Viognier is ready to bottle and we're starting to worry that its going to go through a late malo conversion and loose the wonderful flavours and acids its currently showing. the Shiraz needs to be racked off the malo lees and moved into the Anwilka barrels (hopefully the high Parker points will rub off), etc.,.
In short, we've chosen to dare the difficult path; furthermore, though we may fail, our intention is greatness and wild success. And with hope, the failures will be as majestic and inspirational as the overwhelming successes.
Love,
Jake
Planting vines, growing grapes, wine-making and wine maturation all follow those lines so closely that to distinguish a "made" wine from a picked wine is harder and harder to do...
Pick the ultimate Viognier and watch as the barrel spoils the party. Pick Shiraz too early and taste the weedy green tannins in the un-fermented juice. Pick a red too late and force yourself to re-hydrate so your alcohol levels match industry norms. Plant Chardonnay in the wind and watch as your whole crop flies away in the first big October wind. Success though is elusive and dangerous.
Elusive because everyone in the industry is shooting for the same magic. Dangerous because then you must recreate the magical situation that you encountered in the year you last made the wine.
So better still to make different wines every year. Make 42 different labels of wine and hide in the anonymity of the multitude of different styles and varietals. Why make two or four wines. Why subject yourself to the scrutiny of the one land one wine terrior test.
We tried and succeeded with the Chardonnay. This year we're coaxing the barrels and playing wonderful music to eek out the same flavours and layers that the 2006 Chardonnay is showing. The Viognier is ready to bottle and we're starting to worry that its going to go through a late malo conversion and loose the wonderful flavours and acids its currently showing. the Shiraz needs to be racked off the malo lees and moved into the Anwilka barrels (hopefully the high Parker points will rub off), etc.,.
In short, we've chosen to dare the difficult path; furthermore, though we may fail, our intention is greatness and wild success. And with hope, the failures will be as majestic and inspirational as the overwhelming successes.
Love,
Jake
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2008 Chardonnay
Snow in the clouds...
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