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I want a dry
white wine, full bodied almost creamy in texture, still maintaining a
zestiness, but not so fruit driven on the nose, more toasted features and
perhaps some flintiness. Robust, good length, ageing potential and Big. Rs
300 per bottle cost price after tax’
Let’s stick
with the above description. Always start your project with your desired wine
style.
Every
winemaker I’ve met always has the following adage in their bag of truthful
clichés
‘Great wines
are made in the Vineyard’ – This is the area of the Viticulturalist
In the
current climate of rapid growth in Indian wine producing vineyards,
particularly in the Maharashtra area, it will only take a few badly made
wines to destroy the Indian brand locally and globally…and that will ruin
the party for everyone
Site
selection is absolutely crucial. Above all vines need good drainage. Roots
do not like being wet at all. They thrive in an environment where their
natural inclination is to stretch out and search for water and trace
elements. Try to avoid clayed soils, unless you have some serious contours
on your side, or really believe you can counter the vigorous vine growth
through more aggressive training systems or rootstock selection. Vigorous
soils will lead to excessive vegetative growth, already an issue in
sub-tropical growing conditions.
It is
therefore essential that you match your desired wine style to your site and
not vice versa. Be very wary of growing vines on a site, just because you
have an available site. For our wine style, we would perhaps want a shallow
loamy soil on a deeper well drained base, say limestone or preferably chalk.
Ideally we would like to have a south facing slope for maximum sunshine
exposure, and North to South lined rows for equal exposure to sunshine on
both sides of the vine.
Spend time
deciding on the best form of trellising. Once your trellising has been
fixed, it is very very difficult to replace. In areas of low humidity, and
where machine harvesting is available, then by all means go for an Aussie
style minimal pruning system. In most other cases, you’re going to have to
think of an alternative. Again think twice about your chosen site if you are
being lead to choosing an excessively de-vigourating style of trellising,
due to soil vigour.
Curb your
enthusiasm on High Crop Yields. With good canopy management and viticultural
practices, crops can achieve higher crop loads and still achieve optimum
desired maturity, but it will take a few years before your at this level.
Really think about using foreign crop load models for the varieties that you
are working with. With the early ripeners such as the Muscat et al, you may
be able to go a bit higher, but again you really need to thin twice when
cropping above 4 Tonnes per acre. This brings us on to vine spacing. With
more vigorous soils think about wider vine spacings. With lower vigour soils
you may want to consider French models of 1m x 1m spacing single armed
cordons. In New Zealand the most practiced method by far is 4 cane Vertical
Shoot Positioned or spur pruned VSP. With the higher density vine spacings,
consideration needs to be given as to whether your tractor can travel down
the rows effectively, and has ample headspace at the end of each row to turn
effectively. In rough numbers you’ll be looking at 5000 vines per Ha.
Really take
time on choosing your rootstocks for your vines. From disease resistance to
countering slightly saline soils, which I understand can be an issue in many
Sub Tropical Indian soils, your rootstock could be the difference between
make and break. I highly recommend a browse through the Yalumba Nursery
Rootstock selector on the following website.
http://www.yalumbanursery.com/
Finally Good
Canopy management is a must. It reduces incidence of pest and disease,
improves fruit flavours and crop yields, and can even help to retain
slightly higher acidity levels through slower ripening. For me reading
‘Sunlight into Wine’ explains everything, and is really an essential
purchase.
SMART, R. &
Robinson, M. 1991. Sunlight Into Wine. A handbook for winegrape canopy
management. Winetitles, Adelaide. 88 pp
Really take
detailed notes of the growth of your vines through the season, noting all
environmental factors and critical phenological dates. If the fruit that is
delivered to the Oenologist is free of pest and disease, has optimum flavour
profile for that variety, and has sugar and acidity levels in the right ball
park, we’re onto a winner….and once harvest is over you can lean back, kick
off your shoes and drink a Kingfisher…at least that’s what I always do
Article
written by:
Puneet Dhall
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