Haute Sécurité

This year we have put up over 1 mile of fencing around our more sensitive vines to try and keep our old ‘friend’ the wild boar out of our precious vineyards.  It’s never quite as easy as saying ‘I’m just going to put up a fence’ as firstly we had to get the digger out to clear away the undergrowth and then 'we' knocked in over 400 metal posts in perhaps one of the stoniest soils in France. 

 

 
The priority was to protect the vineyards on the edge of the garrigue (prime wild boar territory) such as La Caune or Falandrin with its natural spring that becomes a regular watering hole in the summer.
 
All the vineyards we protected were either syrah which ripen early, or the deliciously aromatic muscat with the exception of St Roch which is planted with 100 year old carignan and grenache and normally of less interest to the greedy wild pigs.  But as it is one the last vineyards to be harvested in the village, when everything else has been picked our little vineyard at St Roch becomes surprisingly tasty.

This year the wild boar seem to be hungrier than ever and have already started nibbling at unripe grapes in our unprotected vineyards.  They were so desperate to get into the Falandrin vineyard that they ram raided the fence.
 

Fingers crossed

This week we are pretty nervous as a cold spell has been forecast for the whole of France.  Even down in the depths of southern France, where we are, they have forecast a morning temperature of between 0 and 3°C. 

So not happy with just crossing my fingers I thought I would check out what we could do to prevent any frost damage in our vineyards.  There are two options – setting up lines of smudge pots between the rows of vines and keeping them alight all night to heat the air around the vines and prevent the cold air from settling.

Or sprinkling the vines with a fine mist of water as the temperatures drop to below zero.  This system is fascinating  - the water changes to ice on the surface of the buds and releases a small amount of heat (latent heat) that protects the vine from any damage.  The latent heat prevents the surface temperature of the vine tissue from falling below 0°C.

But I can see a couple of problems on the horizon.  Firstly our 28 vineyard plots of old vines are spread out over more than 20 miles and running between them to keep the smudge pots alight all night just doesn’t seem any more feasable than setting up a ginormous sprinkling system. 

But it does make you realise what length other growers in more northern parts of France go to to protect from frost and how lucky we are down here that frost is a relatively uncommon occurrence – fingers crossed.

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh

Spring is definitely in the air here at Domaine Jones in Tuchan.  With temperatures in the mid 20s for the past three weeks and decent rainfall at the beginning of the year the vines have sprung into life about 3 weeks early.

‘Bud burst’ marks the beginning of a new season and the start of the next vintage – to me it sounds like a great name for the next James Bond movie and I can guarantee it is just as exciting !

But this year we have been caught rather unawares and so whilst we still have a couple of projects to finish off in the winery we have had to divert our attention to the vineyards.  The grass has grown so quickly and is so high that we need to mow it before we can plough and we need to plough before we can start powdering the vines.

It’s early days but at this rate we could be harvesting in August ! As the sun heats our backs in the vineyards it seems impossible to think that a late frost is still a major risk – and that would be catastrophique.




The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again

and we grow old? No, they die too,

Their yearly trick of looking new

Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In full-grown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin

Jones Spring News

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Jones covered in medals

Blooming vines

Bud burst in Domaine Jones Fitou vineyard

Lovely warm weather and a very wet March have made the vines burst into life with such determination that we have been taken a bit by surprise.  We went to have a look at the Domaine Jones vineyard last Sunday and the vines are so full of the joys of spring that they already have enough leaves and tiny bunches to warrant the first powdering of sulphur.  But you can't sulphur when its windy so we had to wait all week for the wind to drop and this morning did out first powdering by hand.

Hello leaves