Vineyard Development
After searching for the ideal block of land to start producing quality organic and vegan wines we have found the block in 2005.
This block is situated in Gisborne, Ormand Valley Road. The block slopes to a North facing, surrounded by hills to the south, which are renowned for limestone, with a old quarry just 400 metres to the right of the block.
The land was being used for grazing, and has a lovely slope to the land, which helps with draining. We have alot of exciting work to do, to set up the vineyard.
We have planted the vineyard, olive grove, cherries and fruit orchard.
The purpose of this page is keep you informed of the progress of the vineyard with up to date pictures and stories.
This picture to the right shows an aerial photo of the block. The block of land purchased is marked with the bright green line.
This block is situated in Gisborne, Ormand Valley Road. The block slopes to a North facing, surrounded by hills to the south, which are renowned for limestone, with a old quarry just 400 metres to the right of the block.
The land was being used for grazing, and has a lovely slope to the land, which helps with draining. We have alot of exciting work to do, to set up the vineyard.
We have planted the vineyard, olive grove, cherries and fruit orchard.
The purpose of this page is keep you informed of the progress of the vineyard with up to date pictures and stories.
This picture to the right shows an aerial photo of the block. The block of land purchased is marked with the bright green line.
Terracing the Hill
11th September 2005, the terracing of the hill. We are manually making tracks on the side of the hill, where we intend to plant out Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot. This is no easy task, but with the ability to visualise the block, it is all very exciting and motivating.
Land Being Ploughed
11th
September 2005 Ploughing the vineyard. This picture shows the proposed
site of the vineyard being ploughed. When we turned up and saw the
tractor and the land turned up we sat in the car for five minutes and
comfort ate, we were initially daunted by the amount of work ahead of
us.
Early September 2005 we pruned and pulled out our grape varieties which were planted in 2003. Digging up these plants was no easy task, they were like minature trees. In the end we obtained around 5000 plants covering eight varieties. We initial planted out 30,000 cuttings, not a very good take, but a good head start.
We are looking at planting these cuttings in late September to the block on the flat and on the hill block.
Planting of the First Plant on the Hill Block
After the hard slog of terracing the hill block, we were finally able to start planting. On the 21st September 2005 the first plant was planted - Cabernet Franc - Yippee!
After the hard slog of terracing the hill block, we were finally able to start planting. On the 21st September 2005 the first plant was planted - Cabernet Franc - Yippee!
Planting the Last Plants on the Hill
Wow, it is amazing we have actually completed the planting, we now have Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah planted on the hill block. We completed this on 24th September. It took us about five solid days to plant approximately 1000 plants.
Driveway
On the 23rd September, the driveway entrance was put in. It was very exciting watching as trucks were arriving dropping off crushed concrete and a dozer was busy digging into the land and laying the concrete out.
The First Bud
This was an awesome moment, to walk through the grapes in the hill block and come accross one of the first buds.
October 2005 was when budburst started to occur. Finally after all of the hard work preparing the land, nature did its work.
Mulching The Vines
We have a strong belief of creating a sustainable environment for our plants, therefore every plant has been mulched with bark and newspaper.
This will allow the individual plants to retain more moisture, adding organic matter and reducing the competition from other plants.
This process took longer than the time it took to plant out the grape plants.
The Tractor
A holiday trip quickly turned into a frantic race to find a tractor. From not knowing anything about tractors to now owning one, is very exciting.
This is Nicola's first ride on the Kubota 40hp in November 2005, just taken prior to running over a grape vine plant.
The tractor has become a very useful tool in the vineyard, especially helping us identify which rows need widening prior to the end assembly's going in.
Vineyard Organic Certification
Yippee! The organic certification process is under way. We passed our audit with flying colours.
We decided to run with CERTNZ, based on the high level of support provided by them and there high recommendation in the organic industry. The process of being fully audited is a three year process, starting from May 20 2005.
The good news is that we will be releasing our first wines with year one organic certification in 2007. With the consistent amount of rain in 2005, weed maintenance has been a continuous job, as with the establishment of the vineyard this has been initially quite important.
Training The Plants
Now that the vineyard is set up, it doesn't stop there. In fact the work just keeps on stacking up.
One of the next big jobs was to start the summer pruning of the plants. Harnessing the plants energy and returning it back to the plant to upward growth. We have around 5000 plants on the block so you can imagine that this takes a while and the process needs to be done more than once.
Its very enjoyable though and a great thinking job. This photo shows Nic and Geoff pruning the plants in early January 2006, the temperature would of been in the early 30's, there is no way to hide from the sun.
Biodynamic Compost Spray
Over time we noticed that the disease pressure was increasing. The disease had a positve correlation to the weather conditions.
For example, we started to get downey mildew and botrytis when it was wet and humid for about a week. The powdery mildew when it got hot and dry. The powdery mildew stunted the growth of the plants and caused the leaves to curl up.
We decided that we needed to be proactive in our approach to these diseases. We thought that the best way to reduce these diseases was to create stronger, healthier plants and promote positive micro-organisms. There was no way we were going to spray copper or sulphur, as this would have damaged the natural micro-organisms, and in the end make us more reliant on chemicals. If you are keen to learn more about composting teas, we have information on making them and how to apply them under our 'organic solutions' page.
Land Shaping
The land shaping was a huge task; before the work was done, there was three acres of land which was unusable.
As the area was steep and wet, we decided to terrace and drain the area. In the end we were left with three terraces. We plan the top terrace for a house site, the next two for a winery and tasting room. At the same time we enlarged our dam to give the block more diversity. We plan to plant out the pond with natives and bring in duck and native birds to the block.
Cherry Trees
Early July 2006 the plants arrived bare rooted, two weeks earlier than expected. With the roots being bare, we had to keep them wet and out of the sun. We decided to place the roots in the pond with straw over the top of them.
It was exciting to get them, I was surprised by the size of them, they were even taller than us. The varieties we have decided to go with are Compact Stella and Sandra Rose, 50 plants of each.
This is an excellent opportunity to increase the bio-diversity on the block, with fruit trees. We are also monitoring the climate conditions in Ormond Valley to assess the viability of Cherries in Gisborne. This information is accessible to all growers, just get in touch with us and we can organise the data transfer.
Our First WWOOFer
As we had so much work to do on our block and we had a spare bedroom at home, we thought we would try hosting WWOOFers, standing for 'working on organic farms for free'.
Our first WWOOFFer was Tim Haag from California, an environmental and economist student/surfer. He stayed with us for two weeks, never once did he complain, even after experiencing our vegan food. Tim did all sorts of work for us, from planting olives, staking posts, weeding our nursery, mulching under the vines and driving the tractor, not to mention his helpful hand at home in the evenings.
A comment from Tim, "Geoff and Nicola Wright were my first hosts. The good assortment of work provided a nice change each day. I enjoyed working on the block. It was nice just to be in the natural beauty of the vineyard, surrounding hills, and farmland. They provided a bike for my use. The current location of their home in town was a convenient bike ride from downtown and nearby beaches. I hope to come back soon!"
Summer 2007
As I write this the summer of 2007 is coming to an end. Well what a summer it has been. The initial months of October/November was threatening Gisborne and our vines with an early drought.
This really affected our young plants and we were busy out there manually watering them and setting up an irrigation system for our cherry trees. The annoying thing is with the extra competition from the grass around the vines and minimal moisture in the soil, this really stressed our vines. The later on we saw humid wet conditions that helped grow the grass and our vines. During this time we were busy, non stop keeping down the weeds.
It also saw our original winery and house site plans to go out the window with our Geo-tech report coming up negative. However we have found another site on our vineyard and have added 30 tonnes of chicken manure and other nutrients to our vineyard to help the plants with an abundance of nutrients. Onwards we go!!
We have also re-worked our original house site area and are planning to use this area for olive planting this coming spring.
As I write this the summer of 2007 is coming to an end. Well what a summer it has been. The initial months of October/November was threatening Gisborne and our vines with an early drought.
This really affected our young plants and we were busy out there manually watering them and setting up an irrigation system for our cherry trees. The annoying thing is with the extra competition from the grass around the vines and minimal moisture in the soil, this really stressed our vines. The later on we saw humid wet conditions that helped grow the grass and our vines. During this time we were busy, non stop keeping down the weeds.
It also saw our original winery and house site plans to go out the window with our Geo-tech report coming up negative. However we have found another site on our vineyard and have added 30 tonnes of chicken manure and other nutrients to our vineyard to help the plants with an abundance of nutrients. Onwards we go!!
We have also re-worked our original house site area and are planning to use this area for olive planting this coming spring.
Staying Focused
Wow, what a summer; It was so hot and dry it was amazing, not to good for our young plants that needed the water for growth, but good for older vines in the district to help ripen grapes and keep them nice and clean from disease.
We couldn't resist not making wine from this vintage, so we managed to source some chardonnay (mendoza) grapes from a local grower. Sad to say for those that are looking out for our organic wine, we are hoping to harvest these in the 2008 vintage.
Over the last few weeks I have been working with a builder to build us a 4 bay implement shed, with one enclosed and concreted. It was hard and rewarding work, and we now are the pround owners of our first building on our orchard. We hope that this is just the beginning, with some draft plans been drawn up for our eco home.
We have the hard task of pulling up vines and end assembly's to create the new home site. Once this is done, which we are hoping to get this done before winter, we can then go forward with our dream of building our eco home.
Wow, what a summer; It was so hot and dry it was amazing, not to good for our young plants that needed the water for growth, but good for older vines in the district to help ripen grapes and keep them nice and clean from disease.
We couldn't resist not making wine from this vintage, so we managed to source some chardonnay (mendoza) grapes from a local grower. Sad to say for those that are looking out for our organic wine, we are hoping to harvest these in the 2008 vintage.
Over the last few weeks I have been working with a builder to build us a 4 bay implement shed, with one enclosed and concreted. It was hard and rewarding work, and we now are the pround owners of our first building on our orchard. We hope that this is just the beginning, with some draft plans been drawn up for our eco home.
We have the hard task of pulling up vines and end assembly's to create the new home site. Once this is done, which we are hoping to get this done before winter, we can then go forward with our dream of building our eco home.