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    Cool-Climate Vine-growing and Wine-making
    Cool-Climate Vine-growing and Wine-making
    Cool-Climate Vine-growing and Wine-making
    Ebook219 pages2 hours

    Cool-Climate Vine-growing and Wine-making

    By Michael Barry

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    About this ebook

    A vineyard is potentially a very valuable use of land. There is a lot to learn but the results can be impressive – even in a cool climate like Britain, even with only an acre or so available for use.

    This e-book details most of what you need to know to make a success of a vine-growing and wine-making venture, whether for commercial or domestic purposes.

    Based on an original series of articles published in magazines The Smallholder, Farmers Weekly and Homebrew Today and plenty of first-hand experience, this essential resource can help you plot your course successfully in an exciting new enterprise and enable you to avoid the many pitfalls lying in wait!

    “Cool climate Vine-growing and Wine-making” outlines all you need to know to get started - whether as a bigger commercial producer, a small commercial producer, or to create a family vineyard producing enough low cost wine to satisfy a thirsty family of wine drinkers.

    Although written with UK experience and resources in mind, the practices and principles apply universally to all cool climates globally.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael Barry
    Release dateApr 20, 2012
    ISBN9781476062389
    Cool-Climate Vine-growing and Wine-making

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      Book preview

      Cool-Climate Vine-growing and Wine-making - Michael Barry

      Cool-climate Vinegrowing and

      Wine-making

      By Michael Barry

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      * * * * *

      PUBLISHED BY:

      Perceptive Creation on Smashwords

      Copyright © 2012 by Perceptive Creation

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Cool-climate Vinegrowing and Wine-making

      By Michael Barry

      Based on articles published in Farmers Weekly, Homebrew Today, and Smallholder between 1996-9.

      The content of this book is derived from a series of articles written for and published in a variety of magazines with different readerships. It has seemed to me to be helpful to maintain this variety of viewpoints when bringing the articles together in one book, even if this means a certain amount of duplication across some of the chapters.

      In the first three chapters I establish these three types of reader (larger commercial, smaller commercial, family/hobby), but after that invite you to select the chapters yourself that you are most likely to find helpful.

      Where possible, some updating has been done for 2012 publication of this book.

      CONTENTS

      1. The viability of running a vineyard in the UK  - Approach 1

      2. Small is good  - Approach 2

      3. The family vineyard - Approach 3

      4. Vinegrowing: planning and preparing a site

      The perfect vineyard site is:

      Site planning

      Preparing the ground

      Drainage and wind protection

      5. Vines and roots

      The vine.

      Finding your way around the vine.

      Obtaining vines.

      Varieties.

      Natural and hybrid varieties for outdoor vineyards.

      Points to consider in making a choice.

      Rootstocks.

      Grafted rootstocks available.

      Action in the autumn.

      6. Spring in the vineyard.

      Is your site ready?

      Planting a few vines

      Planting cuttings

      Planting many vines

      The first four years

      Trellising

      7. Early summer in a mature vineyard

      Disbudding or deshooting.

      First spraying

      Spring frosts

      Rabbits!

      8. High summer in the mature vineyard

      Summer pruning

      Canopy management

      Flowering and fruitset

      Spraying

      A spray programme (see appendix 6)

      9. Vines in glass houses

      Grape varieties.

      Positioning your vines.

      Planting.

      Winter pruning.

      10. Vines under glass during summer

      Springtime.

      Summer pruning.

      Ventilators.

      Pollination.

      Spraying.

      Water.

      Harvest.

      11. Equipping a winery.

      The smaller winery

      The bigger winery

      12. Preparation for harvest.

      Preparation for harvest checklist

      Bird control techniques.

      A few basic rules

      Wasp control

      13. Harvesting and making wine

      Harvest approaches

      Monitoring your vineyard

      Harvest arrives

      At the winery

      Fermentation

      Post-fermentation

      Stabilization

      Other treatments

      14. Winter pruning  

      Double guyot

      High trellis systems

      Stand-alone systems

      15. Mechanization in the vineyard

      Tractors

      Garden tractors

      Full-size tractors

      Tractor and non-tractor spraying

      Put a tiger on your back

      Trellising systems

      Supports

      16. Just exactly what is wine?

      The ingredients of wine

      Stylish wines

      The mysteries of the wine tasting

      17. The wine and food programme

      Serving the wine

      Information from labels and bottles

      Appendix 1  - The wines of Wales a round-up

      Appendix 2 - It's hard to beat the real thing! 

      Appendix 3 - Useful contacts and resources.

      Appendix 4 - The perfect vineyard site

      Appendix 5 - The art of cool-climate vinegrowing and The art of cool-climate winemaking

      Appendix 6 - A spray program.

      1. THE VIABILITY OF RUNNING A VINEYARD IN THE UK  - APPROACH 1

      (NB Quoted costs/earnings figures are from late 90s and will probably be somewhat greater now across the board. The John Nix Farm Management Pocket Book is now in its 42nd edition for 2012 – and can be sourced at www.thepocketbook.biz  ).

      There was a time when it was being said that a vineyard was the most profitable use of agricultural land in Britain. However a few recessions, combined with a UK government relentlessly increasing domestic duty on wine, and EU regulations that make available virtually duty free wine in bulk to anyone who makes a day trip across the Channel, have altered the picture. It is now necessary to be a bit more cautious in planning a commercial vineyard.

      On the other hand, EU regulations and recessions have exactly the same effect on any traditional farming activity, so vineyards are perhaps nothing special here.

      Planned well, with careful costings and a well reasoned marketing strategy, growing vines can still be usefully profitable, especially if you are prepared to make your own wine as well.

      Let's look at some facts and figures:

      A mature vine can produce up to 6lb of ripened grapes per year, given reasonable weather

      from 12 to 14 bunches

      equivalent to 1.5 to 2 bottles.

      1 acre of land will take 1800 to 2000 vines

      on an average spacing of 5' each way (wider rows will allow use of farming machinery, but reduce yield per acre)

      yielding 2+ (some say up to 5) tons of grapes or 2000 to 3000 bottles on average.

      This acre will require around:

      - 500 posts

      8 miles of wire

      and will almost certainly benefit from anti rabbit (and in some situations, anti-deer) fencing, unless other forms of control are effective.

      This acre will yield a first crop of up to 50% capacity in Year 3, and this will not be your best wine.

      In Year 4, you should approach a full crop, but it may take to Year 6 to be fully productive.

      If we assume a low retail bottle price of £3.95, duty per bottle of £1.06, wine making charges of £1, no VAT, no home consumption, and 100% retail sales from your own shop, each acre of 2500 bottles will earn you £4725. At £4.95 and a good year production of 3000 bottles, this becomes £6458. Not bad for an acre!

      At more than 5 to 7 acres, the work becomes too much for one couple or family, and wages have to be considered. There is perhaps less to be said for a vineyard of between 7 and 10 acres because of the need to cover these wages. However existing investment in mechanization will obviously extend what can be done by one family.

      At around 3 to 5 acres VAT comes into play   unless you have been successful in separating the wine business from your mainstream farming activity. A separate company or different partnership structure can help with this, as can a new trading name.

      Beyond this point, volume becomes too great for 100% personal sales from the vineyard (though this will clearly vary with location) and you will need to be considering the use of the following channels:

      - Sales agent

      Other Retail outlets

      Wholesalers

      Supermarket chains.

      James Dowling of Pilton Manor vineyard, one of Somerset's biggest at 20 acres. You must be very clear where your markets are and what you are going to get for your wine, he warns. If you have less than 5 acres you can sell everything at the vineyard for full retail price. Above that the economics get shaky. As a rule of thumb, you should allow a 33% mark-up once other people get involved. A bottle you sell at the vineyard for £4.50 (inc VAT and duty), you will now only get £3.40 for.

      Let's look at a worst case scenario: You have a Sales Agent working on a commission only basis of say £2 per case sold. The wholesalers he is selling to are marking the wine up by 25%, and the retailers they are selling to are doing likewise.

      If the end price stays at £4.95 per bottle, then the retailer is buying at £3.96, the wholesaler at £3.16, your agent is taking 16.7p, VAT is levied at 45p and Excise Duty a whacking great £1.06 (and Yes - this is a tax on a tax - absolutely iniquitous, isn't it?!).

      This leaves you with £1.48p per bottle. Not a lot! If we still assume 2500 bottles per acre, that's £3700. For 12 acres, £44400. 12 acres is recommended by ADAS as the minimum size required for a sole activity with which to support a family.

      Clearly on £1.48p per bottle, you cannot have your wine made for you at £1to £1.50 per bottle! But you can make it yourself. It's basically not difficult (like a kit to all intents and purposes   except that you crush and press real fruit to start with, and you don't add water!!). Of course, quality wine does take skill, experience and care; and quality wine is what you need to be viable.

      Start up costs are quoted (in the John Nix Pocket Book, published by Wye College, University of London) as £6250 per acre for Double Guyot training system, and £3950 for Geneva Double Curtain, spread over the first two or three years. These figures include labour.

      Annual running costs, when fully productive, are quoted as £935 for Double Guyot and £780 for Geneva Double Curtain.

      The Geneva Double Curtain System is cheaper to set up (wider spacing), cheaper to operate (no summer pruning) and is ideal for farm mechanization. However it yields less per acre as a result (say 1 to 1.5 tons as opposed to 2 to 5).

      Your own winery, the same source quotes, will cost at least £50,000 to set up. However it should be pointed out that good, reliable second hand equipment is readily available.

      If you are prepared to invest in polytunnels, you can grow the well known classic grape varieties, and get a consistent crop, whatever the weather. It can pay dividends. These costs can be amortized over 15 to 25 years.

      Annual consumables are mostly labour, but you do have 5 to 14 sprays a year (sulphur, copper, and a selection from the commercial curative sprays currently available and permitted for use in the vineyard)   against powdery and downy mildew, and against botritis. Two or three herbicidal sprays with Gallup or Roundup between the rows are also helpful, but active rotavation will do instead. With Geneva Double Curtain, many simply grass between the rows.

      The annual cost of wine consumables, bottles, corks, capsules, labels and boxes will be in the order of 50p per bottle.

      So, on a worst case

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