Vineyard
For the church movement, see Association of Vineyard Churches. For the suburb in Sydney, Australia, see Vineyard, New South Wales. For the Massachusetts island, see Martha's Vineyard. |
A common vineyard. |
A
vineyard (
vignoble in
French,
vigna or
vigneto in
Italian,
vinha in
Portuguese,
viña or
viñedo in
Spanish,
Weinberg in
German) is a place where
grapes are grown for making
wine,
raisins, or
table grapes.
According to the
Old Testament (
Genesis 9:20),
Noah planted a vineyard on
Mt. Ararat. When
Moses led the
Hebrews to
Canaan, they are said to have regretted leaving the wines of
Egypt (
Numbers 20:5). In their new home, however, they found numerous vineyards.
The spread of
Christianity and of vineyards in Western civilization occurred concurrently.
St. Martin of Tours (316-397) both spread Christianity and planted vineyards.
During the instability of the
Middle Ages the
monasteries maintained
viticulture. They had the resources, security, stability and interest in improving the quality of their vines over time. The monks also had the education and time necessary to enhance their viticulture skills. Throughout the Middle Ages, the best vineyards were owned and tended by the monasteries, and
vinum theologium was considered superior to all others.
The vineyards of
Europe were planted in various varieties of the
Vitis viniferous grape. In the late 19th century the entire species was nearly destroyed by the plant louse called
phylloxera that had migrated to Europe from
North America. Native American grapevines are varieties of
Vitus labrusca, which is resistant to the bug, but produce wines with a foxy, animal type taste.
Vitus viniferous varieties were saved by being grafted onto rootstocks of
Vitus labrusca. However, there is still no remedy for
phylloxera, which remains a continuing threat to vineyards around much of the world.
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A vineyard with bird-netting. |
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Many vinyards off the bank of the Rhine River in Germany. |
For well over half a century
Cornell University, the
University of California at Davis, and
California State College at Fresno, among others, have been conducting scientific experiments to improve viticulture and educating practioners. The
research includes developing superior grape varieties, investigating better ways to control or destroy harmful pests, and develop improved techniques for producing better vineyards.
New viticultural techniques have made possible the development of wine industires in various New World countries such as
Canada. Today there is increasing interest in developing
organic, ecologically sensitive and sustainable vineyards.
Biodynamics has become increasingly popular in viticulture. The use of drip irrigation in recent years has expanded vineyards into areas otherwise unplantable. A consequence of irrigation is consistency of yields and a virtual irrelevance of vintage year. Other recent practices include spraying water on vines to protect them from sub-freezing temperatures (aspersion), new grafting techniques, soil slotting, new trellising methods, new canopy management techniques such as minimal pruning, and
mechanical harvesting.
The implementation of mechanical harvesting is often stimulated by changes in labor laws, labor shortages, and bureaucratic complications making it difficult and expensive to hire labor for short periods of time, the need to reduce production costs, the need to harvest quickly, and the ability to harvest at night. However, retarding the utilization of machine harvesting are such things as very small ownership parcels, incompatible widths between rows of grape vines, steep terrain, and traditional views rejecting such harvesting.
New World vineyard plantings have been increasing almost as fast as European vineyards are being uprooted. Between 1990 and 2003, U.S. vineyards increased from 292,000 acres to 954,000, Australian vineyards went from 146,000 to 356,000 acres, Chilean vineyards grew from 161,500 to 415,000 acres.
There are also changes in the kinds of grapes grown. For example, in
Chile, thousands of acres of low-quality grapes have been replaced with such grapes as
Chardonnay and
Cabernet Sauvignon. This is often in response to changing consumer demand but sometimes results from
vine pull schemes designed to promote vineyard change. Alternatively, the development of T budding now permits the grafting of a different grape variety onto existing rootstock in the vineyard. This makes it possible to change varieties within a period of about two years.
Which grapes are grown in vineyards, as well as how they are grown, often reflects legislation, which in turn may serve to reinforce tradition. For example, laws may restrict which varieties can be planted, whether vineyards can be irrigated, when grapes can be harvested, and so on.
Changes in laws can also influence which grapes are planted. For example, during
Prohibition in the U.S. (1920-1933), vineyards in
California expanded seven-fold to meet the increasing demand. However, they were largely planted in varieties with tough skins that could be transported across the country to home wine-makers. The resulting wine was of low quality.
Leading wine critic
Robert M. Parker, Jr. has had a significant influence on viticulture around the world. His taste preferences have led many growers in
Bordeaux, for example, to practice "
green harvesting," in which whole grape clusters are removed and discarded during the growing season in order to reduce yields. Also, because of Parker's influence, many growers now strip sections of leaves away from vines to permit more direct sunlight to reach the grapes.
There is a continuing relationship between the history of alcohol and the history of vineyards that has existed from the earliest known times.
Terroir refers to the combination of natural factors associated with any particular vineyard. These factors include such things as soil, underlying rock, altitude, slope of hill or terrain, orientation toward the sun, and microclimate (typical rain, winds, humidity, temperature variations, etc.) No two vineyards have the exact same
terroir, although any difference in the resulting wine may be undetectable.
Vineyards are often on hillsides and on
soil of marginal value to other plants. A common saying is that "the worse the soil, the better the wine." Planting on hilllsides, especially facing south, is most often in an attempt to maximize the amount of sunlight that falls on the vineyard. For this reason some of the best wines come from vineyards planted on quite steep hills, conditions which would make most other agricultural products uneconomic.
A stereotypical ideal vineyard site for wine grapes (in the Northern hemisphere) is a hillside in a dry climate with a southern exposure (to maximize the sunlight that falls on the grapes), good drainage (to reduce unnecessary water uptake into the grapes), and good pruning (to force the vine to put all its energy into the fruit rather than foliage).
*
Wine*
List of wine producing regions*
Noble rot*
Agoston Haraszthy* Echikson, Tom.
Noble Rot. NY: Norton, 2004.
* Robinson, Jancis (Ed.)
The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, second edition, 1999.
* Taber, George M.
Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
*
History of Alcohol and Drinking
