Ploughing - hold your horses!

Is it the time to plough the fields and scatter?

No plough the fields and get rid of the weeds! We don’t want them around as they steal all of the nutrients and water that the vines could get, when they are already having to work very hard on our steep, infertile slopes.

So how do you get rid of the weeds?

Some growers manage weed control with weed-killer but ploughing is a much more organic and natural way of managing the weeds. It is obviously takes a lot longer though.

In the old days the growers would of course do the ploughing with a horse - but as we now have 12 hectares of old vines and with a horse you need to go up and down each row 5 times (and what would we do with a shire horse when it’s not ploughing) - that’s not a very practical or time-efficient solution.

Horses have been replaced by tractors but these are old vines on steep slopes we are talking about, so we can’t just bring a modern tractor in    -  slopes are too steep and vines too close together. A tractor just wouldn’t be able to get down the rows. 

But we did want to do the ploughing properly and so we have bought a small little slim line tractor  - a Chenillard  - from the French for  ‘Caterpillar’! Basically, it's a little tank with caterpillar wheels that can fit between the narrow rows of vines  and reach the parts a normal tractor can’t!  Also it can go up the slopes, it’s small and sturdy and won’t tip easily – according to Jean Marc!!.  But in actual fact the only time that Jean Marc has tipped a Chenillard was on the flat!! So I can’t wait to get out in the vineyards and start ploughing!

But hold your horses ……it’s not that straight forward.

Hold your horses, Jones

A lot of old vineyards haven’t been ploughed in over 50 years. Because of this the roots often go across as well as down - so you can’t just go in and plough as you would cut the surface roots and the vines will die.  This year we have just ploughed on one side of each row of vines and next year we will plough both sides.

Ploughing on one side only this year

So that must be a hard day’s work for you?

Actually Jean-Marc has done the first stint!  But yes I am keen to have a go with my new birthday present soon!  Jean Marc doesn’t  seem to be sharing my enthusiasm!!

Jean Marc used a chenillard in the vines when he first started at the age of about 15 and before he had enough money to buy a tractor.  So he has all the experience needed to teach a novice like me!!

So have you had our first lesson yet?

No not yet! I definitely need a test drive. It looks fun but there’s no steering wheel. So watch out for the first instalment of ‘Tractor Cam’ – coming soon!

Jean Marc has allowed me to sit on it in the carpark

Planting densities - à chaque terre, sa guerre!

When your vines were planted, how did they know how many vines to plant?

It’s all very much a balance of how many vines to plant according to soil type to ensure you get the right yield.  Too high a yield can mean poor quality grapes but again it’s not that simple.  Depending on the soil type you may get a higher yield from fewer vines if the soil is fertile but a lower yield from the same planting density if the soil is poor.

In the old days they would plant the vines in 1.5 m x 1.5 m squares resulting in  4,400 vines / ha.  The vines were planted in squares so that the horse could criss-cross plough in both directions.

The distances were measured in 'pan', which is an old measurement used locally and is equivalent to 25cm.  The vines were planted at 6 pans (1.5m) for horses then at 6.5 pans or 1.625 m for the first Chenillard tractors.  Today vines are planted at 2m for the modern tractor.

It is difficult to give a general rule on planting densities and the effect on the quality of the wine  as this also depends on the soil and how the vines are worked so you really have to know each individual vineyard intimately. As Jean Marc’s grandad used to say ‘A chaque terre, sa guerre’  -  which loosely translated means each vineyard has its own problems.

My old Carignan and Grenache vines planted at 6 pans (1.5m)

What are those larger passageways in the photo?

Often when we take over an old vineyard we take up one row of vines every 6 rows so that we can get the tractor in to help with vineyard management.  This does lower the density of vines and if we didn't let the grass grow it would increase the yield and lower the quality on the vines growing along the passageway.  

Are all your vineyards planted the same?

In the time of horses, to increase the density the vines were sometimes planted in a diamond shape rather than a square.  This can be seen in our Macabeu vineyard above the village of Paziols.  The distance between the rows is thus reduced to 1 m instead of 1.5m.  This vineyard was planted about 80 years ago and as it is the bottom terrass,  the soil is relatively fertile. The soil could cope with a higher density of vines so they planted in a diamond shape.  This made the rows too narrow to even get a horse down so the vineyard was weeded by hand using a ‘bigos’ -  a two pronged fork. 

A bigos - definitely not a modern day option for weeding our vineyards

Is planting density the only factor that can affect the yield?

Planting density is not the only factor that will effect the quality and yield of the vine and at the moment we are thinning out the vines shoots to make sure that the yields are kept low.  

Domaine Jones is very much focused on achieving low yields  - and we can do this with the help of our old vines (average 80 years old) and our steep slopes with infertile soils (the roots of the vines have to work much harder to get their nutrients). 

Ok so now we know about planting densities!

Yes, and we should add that at Domaine Jones we will not be planting any new vineyards. We will respect tradition and continue to be mollycoddle our exclusively old vines as they give us such fantastic quality wine! Even though they are nearly all gobelet style (bush vine) and back-breaking to prune!