Indian Runners. Netting Grapes, Coconut Yogurt

The ducklings are doing well. Jean was performing the recommended imprinting during incubation i.e. speaking to them every time they were turned. Indian Runners are supposed to be a flighty nervous bird. Obviously something has changed as these insist on climbing on her and cuddling up. Wacky the last one born who still has little fits of throwing his head back seems fine other than when he has these little episodes.

Jean loves to sit with them to continue the bonding. It's a worthwhile investment. Karl mentioned in yesterday's blog comes to the call because every night when he was locked up Jean would cuddle him and whisper his name in his ear.

Wacky is closest to the bottom with his head back

There were a few opportunistic fruit damaging birds around the vineyard in the last few days and veraison has commenced i.e. onset of ripening. Just a few bunches showing tinges of red.

We lost all but one of the early plums this week to fruit bats who tore open the paper bags. I don't want to lose any grapes intended for wine.

The presence of birds is a good indication that it is time to put up the nets something we'd like to leave as late as possible as it is not ideal for grapes. The Chambourcin and Isabella mind less as they are a hybrids but the Tannat is more susceptible to mildews.

The white netting always looks pretty with the backdrop of green when it is up at first. Later as the vines grow through it and the grass gets untidy it is less attractive. If it doesn't rain too much the mildew stays away but too much rain and high humidity is a killer.

The nets are stored in 200 litre drums to avoid rat damage with each net labelled with its row number as no two rows are identical in length. Twelve trips to and from the hay shed and then both of us lay out the nets and with one of us on each side we drape them as neatly as we can. Later The ends will be stapled shut and a few rocks to hold down the base against strong winds. Surprisingly even though we don't have a fancy mechanism to put up the netting it takes very little time.

The coconut yoghurt was not going well. After 24 hours it hadn't thickened and the souring wasn't apparent. It still tasted like coconut milk. More thickener was added and some more culture. Then last night I left the burner running too long and it overheated. In an attempt to take out the jars before they overheated I accidentally unlocked the clip lock and the contents spilt out. Bugger!

Bio Dynamic Practice with Birds and Bees and some other stuff

Each year after veraison the vineyard starts to receive attention from the bird population. Mainly from one particular species. We invested a large amount of money in netting to protect the crop and at first this seemed to work. But these pests are particularly aggressive and would stand on the netting and peck at the bunches underneath creating extensive damage.

Last year in a BD newsletter received at the time there was a very good article on making insect and animal peppers. As the timing was right we followed the instruction carefully and made some peppers from a few of the birds and applied the peppers in the prescribed manner as well as netting.

Right through December and into January no birds invaded. Then there was a period of solid rain and afterward the pests arrived. When things dried out again we re-applied the peppers with good results. Last year overall there was very little bird damage. This is not a conclusive trial but it looks very positive and we will try again.

So to the bees.
An examination of the hive today showed a healthy hive. Food stores look good, lots of activity, a few bees bringing in pollen and a few drones walking about. Can't say I was happy with the amount of brood but the smoker died part of the way through the inspection and not all the frames were examined. Will re-examine the hive in a couple of days time.

The SHB (Small Hive Beetle) population was quite small. Is this an indication of a strong hive or just dry weather not being conducive to their breeding? The opening of the hive drives the SHB to the bottom board where there are some small slots leading to a trap filled with Diatomaceous Earth. After each hive opening the trap always has a dozen or two SHB floundering about in the earth. I make sure they get a good coating.

The slide out bottom board SHB trap

We made some SHB peppers last year again at the correct time and today I applied the peppers around the hive in a series of concentric circles. This will be an interesting test. Having used up all the peppers I harvested the dead and struggling beetles from the hive trap and added them to my collection which is kept frozen. As soon as the time is right we will make some additional peppers.

Frozen SHB

When making chocolate the other day I made a large chocolate block with no nuts or shredded coconut for Jean to use in making  a dextrose sweetened chocolate fudge for morning tea which she did today. It was perfect. Moist, a hint of sweetness and very chocolaty.

It broke in two when picked up

Across the river at the workplace things proceeded quickly now that no irrigation is required. The cows had demolished the freshly made Ryegrass silage put out yesterday. They had almost licked the ground clean of any that fell out of the feeder. The last of the old Lucerne was fed to the weaners with the exception of three bales which I was forced to leave in place. In a bowl like cavity chewed into one bale was a nest with 4 or 5 little rabbits huddled together sleeping and making sighing noises. I gently partially covered the nest with a bale for protection and left them alone.

Back home the NZ compost made 5 or 6 weeks ago was due for turning which didn't take long as there was a spare compost box right bedside the it.

And then (finally) got back to repairing the box trailer. We are still two bushes short to complete the task but the newly painted axle and rust proofed springs went in and all but two of the bolts. New bearings and seals and lots of grease completed the wheel assembly. Only five minutes work remains once we get the two new bushes.

Netting Grapes, Reading, Sparkling Wine, Tomatoes, Bottling Wine

Netting Grapes

The mild (until now) summer has resulted in a slow ripening of the grapes. As soon as the first bunch started to turn from green to various shades of pink, red, purple and black out came our nets. Last year the nets were left off too long and the parrots quickly removed the bulk of the crop. The weather has surged to hot suddenly and the bunches all quickly commenced and completed the transition to red.

We use white bird netting because tests have shown they let through a touch more UV light. They also look spectacular in the vineyard contrasting against the green grass background.

The vineyard consists of only 150 vines, a mixture of Isabella, Chambourcin and a few Tannat. The Isabella are slowly being either replaced or grafted over to Chambourcin. The Chambourcin were chosen because their hybrid nature makes them more tolerant of the humid conditions and no spraying is required to fight mildew. It is possible to make good wine from Chambourcin but it does need to ripen well and to do this requires minimising the number of bunches per vine.

The harshness of our rocky outcrop results in vines which send out roots horizontally as that is the only place they can go. This makes them susceptible to suffering in dry conditions but every now and then we manage to make some wine from our own crop. Mainly it is just to have a vineyard of one’s own rather than a sensible agricultural pursuit.

The most recent investment involves re-trellising the rows. The original trellising was a Hodge podge affair established quickly without a lot of forethought. Now that we know we can keep the vines alive a new trellising system is in progress. Experience has shown that a taller trellis seems to produce a better result. Based on the investment in material and time each bottle costs in the hundreds of dollars. Well we don’t own yachts or racehorses.

Reading

This year has been the first time we have both used the festive season to relax and do as little as possible. The flurry of activity leading up to Christmas involved getting the place ship shape with mowing and weeding.

Part of the preparatory process was to stock up on a large number of library books both fiction and non-fiction. A real kaleidoscope of genres and authors to make sure that all moods were catered.  A few library DVDs rounded out the stockpile.

What a wonderfully relaxing couple of weeks sitting around eating, drinking and reading. Occasionally pottering around to settle a meal or a little exercise to justify the next feast.

All this rest and recreation will come to an end soon enough and gardens will need weeding and planting, the lawns will need some attention as well as the long list of jobs that need doing will be unearthed.

Sparkling Wine

One of the pleasures we are enjoying with the hot weather is sipping on a glass or two of sparkling wine. The pleasure is doubled because this is our own sparkling Semillon. For whatever reason (and these experiments are always in the lap of the gods) this batch tastes splendid. It may be the hot weather, it may be that we are taking some time off or it may be just that it is good wine. There is only a very small amount of sulphur used barely 50 ppm.  We only made 9 bottles of this sparkling with the rest bottled as is.

Looking at the vintage diary again after almost 12 months. The grapes were crushed and de-stemmed with the skins soaking for 12 hours and the temperature chilled to just below 11 degrees Celsius before pressing. Brix at 22 and pH at 3.24. The fermentation proceeded in glass under airlock until Brix had dropped from the original 22  to 8. The temperature was kept between 10 and 15 degrees Celsius. The lees were stirred each day except for the last day when the must was racked and French Oak added at 5 grams per litre. Bottling was left until the wine had completely cleared in August. Some years we have cold settled before bottling but this was unnecessary this time.

We cap our sparkling with a crown seal and don’t proceed to the stage of disgorging.  When opening the bottle it’s only a matter of decanting the wine in the same manner as a homebrew beer, leaving the sediment at the bottom of the bottle.

Tomatoes

As with the grapes the tomatoes have also been slow to ripen. Although there are always plenty to eat it has been difficult to gather enough ripe fruit to bottle. Still because of the previous year’s bounty we don’t need to make all that many jars. As long as the tally reaches 50 or so by season’s end we should be covered. There is also a backlog of dried tomatoes which we can use as filler.

In terms of eating fresh tomatoes we have been very impressed with the smaller varieties such as Red Grape and Cherry. A very intense sweet flavour that enhances a salad. Unfortunately trying to collect several kilograms of these for pureeing is just too hard so the larger less tasty varieties such as Roma fit the requirement. Particularly tasty has been Black Russian, our first planting of this variety. It has good size, firmness and is delicious.

Some of the other larger varieties have failed to perform this year but that happens from time to time. Their turn will come. Now that January has arrived it won’t be much longer before the fruit fly takes over the larger fruit leaving us dependant on the smaller varieties for day to day eating.

Bottling the last of the 2010 Malbec

The last batch of Malbec was 32 litres. It had been pressed and stored in the demijohn on February 12 after the addition of 6 grams per litre of French Oak chips.

The grapes were picked and crushed on February 3. The pH was 3.67 and the Brix 22.2. A little Tartaric acid was added to adjust the acidity and BDX yeast used. About 10% of the stems were added to the must. As is recommended for this manufactures’ yeast a small quantity of yeast nutrient is added. We split the nutrient into three batches adding one at the beginning, one when a third of the fermentation is complete and the final quantity at the two thirds mark.

The day after crushing 5 litres was bled off to make some Rose and fermentation was apparent by the day after. When fermentation commenced the temperature was 19.9 degrees Celsius.  By the following day the temperature was lowered to between 14 and 15 and until pressing the temperature kept between 12 and 15. This stretches out the fermentation period giving more skin contact. 

On February 10 we pressed another batch of Malbec and added the skins to this batch. This increase in the skins to juice ration should make for an interesting effect. Because no preservative is added we pressed when the fermentation was two thirds complete and the still fermenting must put in glass under airlock.

We look forward to see how this develops with age.