Choosing A Vineyard Site

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CHOOSING A VINEYARD SITE

Chris Turyk - I love wine, a lot. I’m a Certified Sommelier, WSET Diploma graduate, and get in everyones way at unsworthvineyards.

Ambitious accurately describes vineyard establishment at the best of times. in most regions given their terrain. Besides pointing out the apparent lunacy required in initial vineyard establishment, worth exploring is the reasoning behind why vineyards are established where they are. Some vineyards work with the existing landscape using slope to maximize sun exposure, while others tailor the landscape to suite their needs; most sites entail a combination of the two.

For those who have travelled classic wine regions you’ll agree that, the slope of least resistance, hardly describes where these vineyards are. Slopes that exceed 45 degrees are not unheard-of which makes it near impossible to stand let alone tend to a vine. Figuring why farmers would subject themselves to this remains a mystery - until you taste the results. Most of these vertical vineyards reside short distances from perfectly reasonable, arable gently sloping land, easily able to host a vineyard and at the risk of offending any vineyard managers - vines will grow practically anywhere. Initially the Phoenicians and later the Romans knew this fact and took full advantage. Traditional flat farmland was reserved for various other agricultural products from grains to livestock to annual and perennial crops. This practice followed the Romans for millennia and we owe some of the greatest vineyards in the world to it as they used the vine to accommodate for the landscape.

Tailoring the landscape to meet vineyard needs shows another historical lesson in vineyard establishment. During the 1600s the Dutch had a penchant for a winelike-beverage from what is now Bordeaux. Desiring more cultivatable land, seeing a swamp, and leading the world in engineering, they decided to dam and drain what is now the most successful wine region of all time. They achieved their

goal of creating more vineyard land out of a marsh and gave hope to subsequent generations of wine producing regions by turning swampland into the world’s most renowned wine appellation.

These historical examples mirror common decision making in the modern day wine industry when a prospective vineyard owner looks to put roots down. A large part of the wine industry is centred around tourism. It is no coincidence that new world wine regions pop up close to major hubs. In North America, Napa and Sonoma are a short drive from San Francisco and the Willamette Valley is an afternoon trip from Portland. In South America, Santiago boarders the Maipo Valley’s 7000acres of vineyard, and within a couple hours drive from Adelaide are a handful of world famous Australian regions.

Most of the aforementioned regions have rich agricultural histories outside of wine. Many vineyards were chosen based on a track record of fruit production, so swapping out crops isn’t a tall order. Look at BC’s Okanagan Valley and Similkameen Valley where hefty percentages of vineyards were established where cherry, apple and stone fruit orchards existed before. Foresight in observing domestic wine consumption and tourism trends, pioneers of modern BC wine history have paved the way for BC being known as a diverse and high quality collection of growing regions. As there are only a few dozen producers between Vancouver and the Gulf Islands with only a couple hundred acres of vineyard it is hard to generalize to what major considerations are driving our vineyard site selection besides availability.

Growing on the fringe of acceptable northern latitude of premium grape growing possesses many considerations for ripening grapes. Maximizing sun exposure is a high consideration, as is a gentle slope and free draining soil. We need every photon of sunlight to ensure every atom of sugar get accumulated in the fruit. To give you an idea, most world leading wine regions have anything from citrus fruit to persimmon and pomegranate growing in close proximity to their vineyards, where here in Cowichan lofty goals it would seem to ripen those fruits without aide of controlled environment like a greenhouse. This remains part of our charm but doesn’t come without its own challenges. Other considerations are things like slope, a gentle slope will allow rains, especially in the spring, to be shed away from the farm allowing the soils to dry out which is beneficial for the fruit. Free draining soil types also aide in the ability to dispose of unwanted moisture in this key time of year.