Sandra Oldfield
Summer 2012: It has been said that British Columbia winegrowers have more in common with Washington state growers than with fellow Canadian growers in Ontario. Proximity and climate make that true, but I have come to see more commonality with Canadian viticulture, starting with similar varieties to the cold winters and even vine sourcing challenges.
Two years ago I began following one single Chardonnay vine on our property to chronicle its season, and blogging the results. I took a picture of the vine and another picture of a cluster every Tuesday from bud break until harvest.
I decided to keep up the practice, and this year added a twist by inviting my friend Brian Schmidt, Vineland Estate VP and Winemaker based in Vineland, Ontario, to blog with me. The result is CabFrancTuesday – a weekly east and west look at the growth of two Cabernet Franc vines.
Using the two vines to act as tiny windows into the two growing seasons is, of course, overly simplistic, but my hope is that it could be used as a stepping off point for discussions. The vines can act as a kind of platform for understanding some of the factors that influence decisions made in both regions throughout the growing season.
The East vine chosen from Vineland Estate is from its Bo-Teek Vineyard located on the Bench of the Niagara Escarpment. The soil is clay with limestone substrate and has a slight grade facing north toward the Lake Ontario slope. Planted in 1998, the East vine is on SO4 rootstock and clone 327. Vine spacing is 8’x 4’ and is Pendelbogon trained (arching the canes over the upper wire and tying to a lower wire). This trellising allows for additional buds to emerge helping to suppress the vine’s vigor.
The West vine from our winery, Tinhorn Creek, is from our Diamondback Vineyard on the Black Sage Bench in Oliver. The soil is sand, and more sand, which helps us regulate the vigor on our site. The vineyard is orientated north/south and has a west-facing slope in the middle of it. It was planed in 1995 also on SO4 rootstock, clone 327 and the vine spacing is also 8’x4’. We use three wire Vertical Shoot Positioning training method leaving eight spurs per vine.
We both face similar struggles with this variety including vigor control, cropping levels and canopy management. For example, Brian finds that Vineland has to remove 100% of the leaves in the fruit zone on both sides of the canopy to allow the sun to degrade the naturally occurring pyrazine (green flavours) naturally found in the Cabernet Franc grape.
At Tinhorn Creek there are hot years where we do no leaf removal at all and there are other years, like last year’s cooler vintage, that we have also leaf pulled but only on the east side of the canopy.
Ultimately CabFrancTuesday will end with the decision to harvest and the factors that went into making that decision—another fascinating time to compare notes. Who knows? Perhaps we can take CabFrancTuesday out of the vineyard and into the cellar after that.