I’m out in a driving rain, taking cuttings. I pull up the hood on my rain jacket moments before gusts of rain smack the back of my head. The leaves of the Marris are clapping, and there’s a sparkle in the air. A new hawk is cruising the vineyard. As the rain abates I see her, a slender Nankeen Kestrel, Falco cenchroides, backpedalling over the Malbec, hunting for mice.
My back is raw from my efforts and my wrist is carpel tunneling from repetitively squeezing my secateurs. I’m clad from head to toe in protection – tall rubber boots, rain pants, rain jacket, glasses and gloves. Despite the gloves, my hands are torn up and calloused. I’m tying the cuttings in bundles of 50 and find it hard to tie a knot with my gloved hands, so I remove them. The cool wood feels terrific against my bare skin and what's more I feel I can distinguish the strength and particular lifeforce of each individual cutting. They certainly do feel different from one another, apart from the smoothness of the wood. Some have terrific vigor and carry a profound strength. Others are twisted and their vivacity is less clear. Some simply possess a deep calm energy. Others have an energy that’s a bit out of control.
I actually discard a few of my earlier choices based on what I am feeling. The weak ones are out, as are the weedy ones. I feel that the overly vigorous ones will be more herbaceous in growth rather than fruit bearing. They have long stretches between nodes and a slight unevenness to them that I decide to reject. I’m acting on intuition, trusting my instincts, as I have no precedent for this.
I continue my experiment of sticking this material directly into the ground that was prepared last year. I’m replacing cuttings that didn’t take - most likely because they were planted so late in the season. I pack the soil around each plant so that there are no air pockets, and pull the odd weeds that have come in through the mulch – a type of onion, bunches of ryegrass, a radish, some bracken fern. This particular block is somewhat shielded by trees: parts of it will not receive early morning sun whereas parts will miss sun in the late afternoon. It will be interesting to see how and if that affects ripening and flavor.
Elsewhere we are “layering in” missing vines rather than starting them fresh from cuttings. This is a way of propagating a new vine from an established “mother” vine. Layered vines grow more quickly than cuttings because they receive nutrients from the mother vine. The aim is to get the new vine to create its own roots while it is still attached to the original plant. We pick a long vigorous cane from one vine and dig a hole where we want to establish the offshoot. We loop it in the hole and bury it with the tip up, leaving several buds above ground. We train it the same way we’d train a newly planted one. The cane will root itself and eventually we will sever the connection to the mother vine.
The layered look:
All this controversy about terroir has got me thinking about the influences of that “je ne sais quoi” that ends up in the bottle. Most wine is incredibly manipulated. It stands to reason that minimal manipulations should reflect the terrain the best, that any inputs would dull the impact of the place expressing through the final product. It’s an argument for natural wine, but just because a wine is natural doesn’t make it a good wine. This is borne out so often in the tasting, alas.
So I’ve preferred those definitions of terroir that alude to a partnership between the vigneron and land, but still find that concept pretty grandiose in practice. While I do see myself in partnership with my land, I also see that the contract isn’t on my terms, and the fine print keeps showing up. Partnership implies a certain give and take. But even the most enlightened farmers I know are giving through human prescribed lenses and taking what they are able. There’s little sense of mystery - the partner isn't actually acknowledged nor credited.
I don’t know how enlightened I am. I’m dogged though, learning from knowledgable old timers, and books, and from my comparatively limited in duration, direct experience of the land. Theoretically it’s coherent. But I suspect that the land is just incredibly generous and tolerant of or amused by my arrogant attempts to “work with it".
Yet some aspects of my relationship to the land are undeniably reflected in the wine. Does my vibration as a grower enter into it? Do my moods, preoccupations, and energies really affect the outcomes? Or are my results merely a question of the physical inputs the vines receive on this particular piece of earth?
Today I was planting Peppermint trees (Agonis flexuosa) along the Caves Road verge. The rain was hammering down, as it has been for months, no let up in sight, resulting in unprecedented surface water in the vineyard (unprecedented in my experience). All that water has to go somewhere. The result is that I crossed two deep flowing creeks, where previously at most I’ve experienced a trickle.
The freshly shoveled dirt smelled the way it looked, red and luscious and deep. I sniffed it greedily, rain splashing everywhere. I was camouflaged in my green raingear, and crouching on my knees, patting a seedling home, when I was startled by a pair of ducks gliding to a touchdown right in front of me plopping into the creek and swimming upstream.
They actually didn’t see me as they swam in tandem against the current, ducking and feeding and quacking to each other. Partners. Could terroir be the partnership between the land and what we do on it? What an arrogant thought. Terroir is the grace of this place, the generosity of all the forces and powers operating here, mostly beyond my ken. Like this creek that appears in the rainy season to house a universe of animals and plants, only to disappear in perfectly adapted dormancy in the dry, it is the only appropriate response to forces and cycles no farmer can hope to manipulate, or understand.
There's a breeze out of the North and the sun has prevailed today over our customary winter rains. I am gleaning cuttings from the first Chardonnay prunings, seeking straight, healthy wood amongst what were the new canes from last year's growing season. I've been cutting the bottom of the canes across the bud itself, as instructed by the old timers, marking the top ends with a diagonal cut so that I can easily tell which way is up.
Margaret River has not experienced grape phylloxera (the sap sucking insect that feeds on grapevines, responsible for the plague that destroyed the European wine industry in the late 1800's), and so it is possible to root these cuttings directly, rather than first grafting to rootstock. The cuttings are placed in a sandy nursery where they will form a white tissue called callus, and the roots will grow out of that. These will be transplanted into the new vineyard blocks. However the cuttings taken today will go directly into the ground, as replacement cuttings for some transplants that didn't make it last year. It's one of many ongoing experiments. Callusing occurs in warm conditions and is necessary for root formation. These replacement vines will remain relatively cold in the ground until Spring, and thus will most likely not callus up until quite a bit later. But I can easily shove them into the soft ground now, without digging, whereas planting the rooted cuttings will require considerably more effort. So I'm experimenting to see how well they take.
I'm alone, and taking my time with it, listening to music with my headphones as I wake up muscles that haven't been used for a while. I listen with the volume turned low enough that I can hear the magpie choir and the leaves chuckling in the breeze. There's a lot of work in front of me, and I'm getting together a plan of how to accomplish everything. Seems like just about every time I come up with a big time and effort saving idea though, I end up expending more. As for this experiment, heavy winter rains have drenched the vineyard. When I place a cutting into the ground I'm met with plenty of water. The rains will continue for several months and there’s a risk that these cuttings might rot in the ground. Am I too early?
Since the harvest the rains have been abundant, resulting in the establishment of a dense mat of weeds. Without chemicals or machinery it will require a massive effort to remove them. Our thick mulch will help somewhat with the broadleaves and the plain grasses, but the presence of kikuyu, Pennisetum clandestinum, a virile runner grass, will necessitate considerable hand labor.
Kikuyu grass is fiercely aggressive and persistent. It invades new territory by sending out stolons (runners), which climb over all obstacles, including other plants, and everywhere it goes, it develops dense networks of rhizomes (roots), which monopolize all available soil nutrients. This strategy enables it to establish itself very rapidly, outcompeting virtually all other plants. It grows so densely that it chokes out all challengers, plus it also produces its very own toxic herbicide, which further discourages any rivals, even if they are already established.
Some neighbors have burned it with flamethrowers. Most kill it with roundup. It can also be scraped up with earthmoving equipment (along with all the topsoil). But if even the smallest piece is left in the ground, it will start another plant. To remove it without damaging our soil involves meticulous hand weeding. But that is an arduous and very costly process. We will have to dig up and remove every particle of each individual plant, and carry it far away from the vines. If even the smallest piece snaps off, it can establish a new plant!
Such a tremendous expenditure of effort and resources may not be entirely efficacious. So I’m walking around in the night wondering if there is any other way to deal with it. One idea is to move some chickens in and feed them in the vines. Perhaps they will be able to scratch up the kikuyu. But once the buds pop we risk the entire crop, and our low cordon means that the buds will be in reach. We will have at least another month of winter, so it might be worth the risk…
And you thought grape growing was easy!
It’s a blustery afternoon, with intermittent gusts of rain. The light is grey silver and failing rapidly. Clouds are moving around, exposing patches of blue. Moldering grape leaves, cupped, damp, and resistant, lift up slightly and resettle as the wind sends them turning in slow motion somersaults through the naked vines. I’m serenaded by silvereyes in the windswept Marris.
I fill my bucket with fresh water and start to swirl, placing dark ball of 500 into the vortex. The cold water is bracing. I focus and slip into a meditation of vortex, chaos, vortex. My breath quiets.
The silvereyes sing to the coming night. Looking up I see white underside of leaves resisting great wind gusts. Veils of rain shift across the vines, followed by long silences. Surf pounds in the distance, occasionally sounding surprisingly near. The formula starts to change - the water starts to slip past itself. Magic.
With darkness falling, a few white tailed black cockatoos weave in overhead, squawking as they settle in to their roosts in the high branches. The light is just about gone as I begin to brush the formula into the vines. It’s wilding up now and I'm singing in the rain, singing in the wind.
It’s the time of the descending moon. Saturn is in opposition. Moisture is everywhere. The earth is breathing. Gratitude is in my heart.
I make note of the weeds infiltrating the vines as I make the rounds. In a few months we'll be pruning...
It is early morning and I have driven 2 ½ hours north of Margaret River to a beauty of a farm. It is set back where the scarp rises from the coastal plain and is well situated in a spot with abundant water. Even now, in early autumn, the fields carry great vibrancy and diversity, with a density of luxuriant grasses. The cows look exceptionally healthy and energetic as well, and it is no wonder - this farm is alive. I pull up to the barn and join a group of longtime biodynamic farmers, who are hard at work making the “500”, the critically important biodynamic preparation.
We labor filling cow horns with gorgeously scented manure freshly produced from their lactating cows which we then orient in circular patterns in a specially sited pit. They have designed a machine that extrudes the manure in such a way that it is possible to fill the horn much like filling an ice cream cone. But you have to keep up with it, because if you don’t, a pile of you-know-what will accumulate quickly. After a while I get the hang of it - tip of the horn down, held securely with one hand when placing each filled horn in the wheelbarrow and so forth. We actually are able to get into the swing of it enough to be able to carry on a conversation while we work. I turn into a question machine – the opportunity to learn from experienced farmers comes rarely. So I question and they reflect and time passes quickly. I learn tons – not just about how to make 500, but also insights about its application and effects.
We fill wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow, which then are ferried over to the pit. We establish a layer by placing the horns in tight circles, based on their proper orientation, one next to the other in an area approximately one meter by five. Each successive layer is covered with a thin topping of deliciously rich loam, which is wet down slightly with water. The next layer of horn is then arranged on that and the process is repeated. When a meter and a half pile of layers is completed, we move out and start another one, adjacent to the previous column. Finally everything is covered with tin sheeting for sun protection, secured by the weight of old tires.
The preparation will remain in the ground until early spring, at which point it will be sent out to many of the biodynamic farms in Western Australia, including ours. This particular pit is capable of producing enough preparation for 100,000 acres, although this year there is only a need to cover 20,000. Since Cloudburst is small scale, we will hand stir a small amount before applying it to our land and vines. We’ve applied this preparation since we began and our soil is integrated and vibrant. The health of this farm and their magnificent cows is further testimony to the validity of this practice.
The day passes quickly and I shower off and head down the road to the winery in the dwindling light. We will be pressing the juice off the skins tonight and I don’t want to miss a thing!
We picked our Cabernet Sauvignon on a coldish autumn day, and the grapes were still cold when they were crushed and pumped into open fermenters. We covered the fermenters with shadecloth secured by elastic to keep out dust and insects and left them resting overnight in the open air of the winery shed. It was a cool night and in the morning the ferment had barely begun.
The next day dawned slightly warmer and the ferment heated up a degree or so, but there wasn’t very strong activity. Apparently it was going to stay cold for a while so we ferried the fermenters into the warmer barrel room and that did the trick, for overnight it began to move. When the ferment was really going we brought it back outside into the open air. Every few hours the temperature rose just a bit more until the yeasts were happily cranking away.
Every day I returned at regular intervals to punch down the cap or pump over the juice, and take a sample to measure and taste. The smell and color and flavor intensified with each successive visit. It was a thrill to inhale the scent of this bubbling exuberance. With each successive visit I could feel it growing more deeply into its own distinctive personality. Several times a day I tasted. I tasted with my nose, my eyes, my ears, my mouth. My hands were purple with tasting!
It reminded me of the magical time of pregnancy, when at first there’s just the slightest inkling that something miraculous is developing, and then suddenly that something is brewing with a speed and rapidity and intelligence. From that early moment of a barely perceptible glow it proceeds through its enchanted stages and the days have a timeless celebratory fullness. Likewise, as I monitored the ferment, moment to moment movement was barely perceptible, but under the surface mysterious changes were rushing to an incredible conclusion.
After six days of this ripening, blossoming, deepening, thickening, rather than extract too much from the skins and seeds, we decided to press it off. It will finish the ferment off skins, simply as juice. I took a last sniff and taste as we prepared to shovel the skins into the press and was intoxicated again by the magnificence of it all.