Wine growing is very addicted to climate and weather. Look what happend during vintage.
For all smart(i)phone users, here is the Youtube Link.
I got the music from the FM4 Soundpark (band: “August the butcher”)
Archive for the ‘Vineyard’ Category
Episode #11 – Vintage Overview
Sunday, August 15th, 2010
History of wine growing #2
Friday, August 6th, 2010After the blog post about history of wine growing #1 (the link here), I want to describe the technical history after 1945 to you. Time after war was a wine growing “hole”, that means that a lot of vignerons died at the front-lines. I am sure they would have loved to work in their vineyards as to fight other people. Therefore a deficit of vineyard workers, vignerons changed vineyards and machinery. The high density plantings where not useful anymore, wider rows for larger tractors were in common. Instead of 10.000 vines per ha, 2000-3000 should do the same, of course with higher yields per plant. Wine in this time was not a drink of pleasure, it was more daily food (that’s why a lot of wines were sweet). Very understandable I think.
Looks like a small tank, but this is a spraying device of the “next generation”. It fits perfect to small narrow rows and steep hills. But no protection of the user going behind.
First high-performance crusher with stone roll threads and to work for 2 people.
Yes, there are still some small artisan coopers in my region, and these are the tools they still use (some) and used decades ago.
The tractor industry made big progress in the 50ies and 60ies. A vigneron who had a tractor like this could say “I’ve got a Porsche”. And truly this is a Porsche wineyard tractor with 22 horsepower!
History of wine growing #1
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010For all who just know about stainless steal, there was a time before that.
This post is about the history of wine growing and showing you some tools as snapshots. There will be #2 shorty but I want to divide this topic about tools in before 1945 and later. 1945 as you know was the year the 2nd worldwar ended and brought many changes to viticulture and cellar work.
A plough for fields an vineyards. 1 horsepower or an ox and a men behind.
The tree press: a big tree on top presses the crushed but normally not destemmed grapes. On the picture a small crusher on the left and a wooden vat for the transport of the grapes out the vineyard (used like a backpack).
An old school crusher made out of wood. For manual mode only.
What you might have not seen yet: a tally stick (Kerbholz in German). For every vat which was brought out of the vineyard a men with this stick added a kerf with a knife (simple harvest control).
Since powdery and downy mildew came to europe, wine growers have to spray. Whatever they sprayed, this was the tool for it made out of wood! (Sure, there is a big difference what is applied in the vineyard. Here it was some copper for sure, because of the green color)
Since the celtics invented oak barrels, it’s a scene which has not really changed in our times.
That’s not a wine barrel. It’s a manure barrel: looks alike but had a different usage :-)
I shot the pictures a the agricultural museum in St. Michael (Burgenland region) and in Moschendorf, a wine growing museum. Not to far from my place and absolutely worth to visit.
Episode #9 – News from the vineyard
Monday, July 12th, 2010The worlcup final is over. Let’s keep an eye to the more important things :-) . Especially the vineyard. Watch what is going on in my organic vineyard and… yes there is something ready for harvest… but this is another story.
The episode #9:
Here the Youtube link for all mobile phone users!
The music is from radio FM4’s Soundpark: Arutan Madjik with the track “Po-pikjen”.
