Hello I'm Anthony Gismondi and welcome to our latest video in which we follow a year in the
life of a BC winegrower. Each season we'll be looking in on four different winegrowers from
separate regions around British Columbia. As spring unfolds across the province we begin in
Kamloops at Harper's Trail where the vineyard team is unearthing canes buried late last fall.
I believe we are the first winery to be doing this in British Columbia. We might have some partners
in Kamloops starting to do the same thing. So what we are trying to do is protect a shoot or a cane
from a vine from the cold elements of winter. So if we were to have some trunk damage then we
could use this shooter cane and use it as a future trunk, so basically it saves us a few years if we
were to replant. So how things work is throughout the growing season we'll use a sucker from one of
the plants we'll just keep one and we'll train that sucker up and grow it for the whole season
once the fall comes and it becomes a cane we'll lay that cane down and fully bury it in soil. Then
comes the springtime we have a crew right now as you can see behind me we basically go at it with
great hoes in our hands and we unbury them and if needed we'll be utilizing them. Fortunately,
this winter was pretty good so we won't have to be utilizing them. We just did some bud
assessment and in the cabernet franc block we I believe we were at 90 percent of our buds were
in good condition for primaries, so for us it is a good year, but the work still needs to be done.
Unearthing takes place in late winter early spring once the winegrower is sure freezing has
passed. This work takes place alongside the annual vineyard pruning. We are probably three quarters
done our pruning. So we are going to be starting the pinot noir tomorrow and a little bit of gamay,
so I'm thinking two weeks of pruning then we'll be done the whole 25 and a half acre property. After
pruning we'll be moving forward with the tying and still continuing with the unhilling. So this
is sort of a really ongoing process we'll where we have multiple small teams going. We definitely
try to put most of our effort into the pruning first so we can get that out of the way and then
hopefully we can get all the rest done in time. Which I'm quite confident this year we'll be able
to. Moving to the mid-Okanagan Valley in the Naramata bench we catch up with grower Richard
da Silva who in addition to his regular spring tasks is planting chardonnay vines.
Our little pink flags you see everywhere are where our posts are going to go. We have a really kind
of sophisticated way of laying out our plans. We have a white pvc pipe here with some electric tape
marking out the plant separation and uh away we go. So what you're seeing here is uh this is my
lovely crew here they've been with me for quite a long time we have Sophie say hi Sophie,
hey hi everybody, and Darian graduate of the viticulture program, here should be working as
our second year with us. And here you can see the little uh the little plants here
that we're talking about and uh this here is a chardonnay plant so it's
got some roots from last year and uh they're right now as you can see there putting them
in the soil here. Because they're not putting any soil in with them um let's kind of show this here
real quick you can see here we put that in like this and we'll just uh use the soil that's here
already. The reason is because we have really good organic material already here so we don't have
to uh put any soil amendments to the soil here. As is the norm in wine growing it'll be another
two to five years before the grapes are ready to be used and even then the yield from young
vines will probably end up in a blend. By the 10 year mark the very best blocks will end up in the
winery's top labels. This time of the year is the most crucial time of the year. It's the busiest
but it's also the most fulfilling you can see um you're you're planning out for future vintages and
also future growth in your vineyard. So in here we're just going to start tying in here we got
pruning we have uh obviously mulching, we mulch all our prunings here and then tying all happening
like right after each like one after the other for sure. So this is me staying the foundation
for what my harvest will look like this year you know even though I'm the winemaker I really enjoy
this part of it this to me is where my passion lies um and really it's it
makes the the job of winemaking a lot easier this is taking care of first and foremost.
With warm weather and spring well on the way we head south about a 40-minute drive
to McIntyre Bluff just north of the town of Oliver. From the middle of his vineyard
owner winemaker Gene Covert espouses the virtues of regenerative farming techniques
and cover crops. Our crews are in and uh we're tying things down right now ahead of bud break
probably in the next week or so and uh so yeah the move is on. Well regenerative farming um
is a whole systems approach to rebuilding soil and it's based on five principles:
don't till or disturb your soil either chemically or mechanically, plant diverse
crops and rotate them, the use of cover crops to augment the soil systems and keeping the ground
covered at all times which is quite unusual in a lot of in a lot of vineyard situations,
and uh and then if possible integrating livestock into the system that really turbocharges it
and really helps you build up organic carbon. We've always had some cover crops as part of
our farming systems um but typically we grow cover crops as monocultures and uh that only
has limited functionality in that 60 to 100 days you're growing it so we've really adapted
over the last few years to multi-species cover crops. Putting together different plant types
and different functional groups for example cool season legumes cool season grasses warm season
grasses warm season legumes. And this basically adds complexity biodiversity to the system also
enhancing the uh resiliency of the system. Sort of counter-intuitive you think that having all
these extra plants growing is going to use up your moisture but keeping the ground covered
keeping that soil surface not exposed to direct sunlight reduces that evapotranspiration and
also you collect a lot of dew at night and in the morning so you're filling that short water cycle
in the vineyard system itself. We see behind you some animals it's a pretty exciting development in
the okanagan to see more cattle and vineyards well what's the why and when and where of all
that at Covert Farms. You know it took us a couple of years to work up the nerve to do it um
most of our herd are Scottish Highlands that have fairly long horns and we were you know concerned
of damage. We uh we did sustain a little bit of damage over the first couple of years.
Separating the bulls from the rest of the cow herd really slowed that down this past year
so that's really good. And the and the great thing is is what we're doing is with all these
cover crops we're growing we're building up um the soil micronutrients and uh building up
uh soil health if you will and these cover crops are producing pretty significant
amounts of biomass while they're feeding our grape crop. And so the cows are basically let
into the vineyard in November and they come and eat all what we call winter stockpile so
these cover crops have dried down uh instead of baling it which is near impossible in a vineyard
situation we just let them graze it. So our about 20 cow herd grazes for about eight to ten weeks
on a 20 acre vineyard so when you think about that we're getting nutrient cycling and
inoculation from the cattle's rumen and we're also growing about you know two pounds per animal of
beef per day augmenting our grape production. For our last stop we head north again to East
Kelowna to Summerhill's biodynamic vineyard for a serious discussion about composting with CEO
Ezra Cipes and winemaker Michael Alexander. Well this this is the time of the year that
uh we apply our biodynamic compost and put it down right underneath the vines. We've got our
our neighbours horse bedding. This year we got some chicken manure which is unique for
us everything from production ends up down here all the skins seeds all the yeasts and sediments
uh and all of our landscaping waste from the garden and everything from the kitchen as well
uh you know if you eat in our restaurant you don't finish your plate it'll get scraped into
the compost bucket. And then finally all of the biodynamic preparations which are added
to aid certain processes of the decomposition in the piles. And michael what do you do with
it how do you spread it how deep is it or how do you use it? So we we do some soil samples on
all the different blocks to see what they need uh we also look at what last year's fruit look like
um and the crew will go out we've got a compost spreader some of our steeper blocks
they actually go out with a couple buckets and they bucket a little compost onto each vine.
So instead of just doing a blanket across the farm we try and read each plant try and read each block
and apply it where it's really needed and it will do the most to create the healthiest vines. Tony,
you've been here before and you know that we we don't like to expose the soil we like to keep
a ground cover over everything and that's so we can keep a living soil with you know
a biome right with bacteria and fungus living there and our soil naturally is very sandy silt
it's very deep uh you know lots of river rocks and it's very like water just dissipates right quick.
So the primary thing that we're adding is organic matter so that the life and the soil,
rather the water has something to like cling onto and stay stable to support that web of life over
time. And then what happens is the roots you know form a connection with that web of life
and they're able to get what they need from the soil and then Michael gets grapes that
have the nutrients available for them to turn into good wine. Composting is just one
of many tools biodynamic farmers use in the vineyard sections of the farm are set aside
for biodiversity and a whole farm approach is applied to managing the land's overall health.
We asked Michael if there was a key time according to the biodynamic calendar to spread compost. We
love to get it on this time of year as we're seeing more life in the vineyard more life with
the cover crop and in the soil we love to get the uh the compost out there uh we normally wait for
root days we take a look at the moon see when it's waxing or waiting but on root days big deep breath
in and a lot of nutrients going and so we wait for around then to spread the compost. Ezra you're
working your magic with Michael, the earth is breathing, I love to hear that. Michael is magic.
Thank you guys I hope you get off to a great start this spring it looks like the compost is
really ready to go. Yeah thanks thanks Tony look forward to sharing these wines with you.
As you can see, winemaking is mainly winegrowing and winegrowing is a lot
of work. We'll be back in the summer to have a look at flowering, fruit set,
shoot thinning and a whole other set of tasks that make up a year in the life of a BC winegrower.
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