WHAT - Viticulture

Dear readers,

It has been a while due to my collarbone fracture I had from the begin of June . For almost four weeks I wasn't able to do a thing with my right hand. I have trained both hands and can use them for everything, even a swirl with a glass of wine isn't an issue anymore.

Today I would like to discuss the processes viticulture. Viticulture has to do with the entire growth of the vine. The first steps within viticulture is the choice of grape variety and how the wine grower will grow its vines; also called vine or cane training. The grape variety will determine the flavour and the methode of vine training, which have an effect on the wine quality in the end. It is per grape variety important to know the grape life cycle. The grape life cycle in the Northern Hemisphere is from February till approximately October, in the Southern Hemisphere it starts in August till the beginning of April. The grape life cycle can vary per grape variety and the wine grower will do its best to find the best production method. 

Back in the days the vines where just growing without any help of the human being. However, the vine produces a lot of leaves. Remember in my previous post that when we have sunshine the leaves will produce photosynthesis that will help the growth of the grape. However, when the production of growth will go to the leaves instead of the grape, the quality grapes will reduce. Therefore the human being has chosen to trellis the vine and the quality of grape became better, since the vine produces more and valuable grapes.

We have two basic methods of vine training, just let the vine grow, which we call the Gobelet Method or the Guyot method when we add cords to control the growht. Within these two basic systems where cane and spur training are distinguished we have another 100 styles, each developed for different reasons, and all having their own advantages and disadvantages. The way in which a vine is trained will guide the size, shape, and height of the plant and will work towards the maximum benefits from the local conditions of aspect and climate. Think about terroir again in this case. All these different ways of vine training is due to the difference in grape varieties. At the moment we produce more than 2000 different grape varieties. 

This is the first part of viticulture. In my next case I will introduce the importance of enting and phylloxera.

For more information you can find the information in the book of Tom Stevenson; The Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia or a Dutch book called 'Aan de slag met Wijn' written by Thérèse Boer and Dr. Peter Klosse.

If there are any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

Love,
Annalia