Vineyard work in the months of April and May

There is never a dull moment in the vineyards and orchards at Tenuta Le Mandorlaie, every month we have vineyard work tasks to achieve in order to assist our plants, to keep them healthy and to hopefully produce a great crop.

So what are we working on in April and May

Irrigation installation – As our vineyards were planted over 70 years ago, it is important that we help them survive through droughts that we are tending to experience every few years here in Maremma. In order to do this I have designed an irrigation system that will water 5 rows of vines at a time, this allows me to more easily control the most precious reserve we have, water. Some rows are in dips of land, these are shown to retain water longer than the first rows which seem to drain earlier due to the gently sloping soil. Currently we have laid out the 16mm irrigation pipes down all of the rows, these then need clipping up to the bottom line, then the next stage is installing the drippers and connecting all pipes to the distribution manifolds.

Green pruning – Our vines always produce more buds, then shoots than required. As we want to produce quality grape bunches and control the amount of foliage produced by the vine it is important not to produce too many, and over stress the vine.

It is difficult to see which shoot will produce grapes until they actually start to show, at this point we can then strip out any shoots that are 1. either not going to produce grapes 2. are not wanted for future use 3. have grapes but are not required. We are then left with the number shoots that will bear the grape bunches that we want.