New Techniques in Managing Vineyards
It is doubtful that there many beverages in the world today with as vast a range of uses as wine. Wine is not just used at parties and other such social functions, but also in important religious rituals. In some countries it is an integral part of daily life. This importance has led to wine being a very sought after commodity and wine producers are constantly on the look out for new techniques on how to grow grapes which can make their vineyards yield more and their wines to be of an even higher quality.
The wines themselves are made from grapes. While it is possible for wine to be made from other fruits, these are not common on the market and tend to be made by home practitioners. The grapes are grown in vineyards throughout the world, the exact locations depending on the type of grapes being grown. Not all vineyards grow grapes for wine though. In some cases the grapes are sold for consumption as is, or for the production of raisins and non-alcoholic grape juice and many varieties are also grown for table grapes.
Vineyards are typically characterized by their terrior.
This fancy word just means a combination of the natural factors of the immediate area and the geographical characteristics. Natural factors can include a range of things such as the soil type, the slope of the terrain, the altitude and the solar orientation. Normally there will be a few types of grapes that can thrive under the natural conditions present in any given vineyard. Knowing what these varieties are and maintaining the environment of the vineyards is crucial to knowing how to grow grapes and having a good crop. To this end, some countries have even instituted very strict laws governing vineyards.
There has also been a lot of research done by wine makers, grapes growers and organizations such as universities on ways to improve the productivity of vineyards. The establishment of the International Grape Genome Project has breathed new life into such experiments. The organization is dedicated to developing vineyards through work done to determine methods of genetically improving the quality of grapes. It is hoped that this will ultimately lead to high producing varieties which are resistant to most, if not all, of the pests which are known to attack grape vineyards.
In today’s thrust towards environmental sensitivity, there is also an eagerness to embrace concepts in organic cultivation and sustainability. New World countries such as Canada are leading the charge in this area. Biodynamics is also becoming a very important area of study. Developed techniques such as drip irrigation have allowed for vineyards to be set up even further inland, thereby increasing the area available for planting grapes.
There are other new techniques in the works. For example, there are some vineyards which are looking into a system of spraying water on the grape vines as a means of protecting them from the freezing temperature of winter. The logic behind this is that the surrounding water will freeze first, forming a sort of protective layer for the vines. There are experiments in the works on new ways of grafting so that a particular variety can have a wider range, as opposed to only being able to survive within a small geographic zone. Other areas of study include canopy management techniques, more effective trellising methods and soil slotting.
The advances in technology so far have led to the rapid expansion of vineyards. In fact, in the U.S. in 1990 there were approximately 292 000 acres of land used as vineyards. By 2003 that number had tripled. In a comparable time, the acreage in Australian vineyards doubled. Of course, more vineyards mean more wine and that’s good news for wine lovers around the world.