Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Re-trellising

I haven’t written about this before, but last winter I acquired a new vineyard: 0.47 hectares (1.17 acres) of appellation Côte-de-Nuits-Villages, situated in the village of Brochon. It’s a lovely vineyard, with old vines and perfectly situated at mid-slope (actually on the route des grands crus). The only drawback is that the trellising (posts, wires etc) is pretty shoddy; in particular the post are very short which makes it impossible to train the vines’ summer growth up to the height which I want.So this winter’s project is to change all the posts and wires. First job is to collect all the old wires (19kms worth!)…Next I’ll prune the vines, then remove the old posts, plant the new taller posts and finally run new wires. Plenty of work… which hopefully will be repaid by the quality of the 2008 harvest!