ty it up and keep it clean...

Flowering goes on, even the Mourvedre started and our first heat wave (86 F /30 C) during the last days helped our sulfur spraying to do it’s work – no oidium (powdery mildew) on the leaves, and a heavy wind prevented mildew so far, so no copper spraying not yet needed.

The vines are not only growing, they seem to be shooting up every day – and they are looking for support where they can find it:

tendril 1

Each has it’s individual way to take hold of the wires with a hard grip

tendril 2

or more graceful and you never find the same constellation twice

tendril 3

and they are even inventive, when the space seems already taken.

tendrils mariage

and where there is no wire, they work together in mutual help…

Some of the upright Mourvedre plants are already higher than me (which is not so difficult…:-)… and as this is a grape variety with vigorous stems which don’t bend easily to the ground, we can keep them without wires or trellis systems as individual plants and they are formed and pruned in the socalled gobelet (goblet) system, typical for many vineyards of the South of France. You will learn a lot more about them next winter, when you may accompany me on my long and lonely pruning days in the vines…

Mourvedre behind Lisson farmhouse

As you can see easily, we have to continue the “cleaning” of the vineyard, which started already early this spring,and consists in brushcutting the natural herbs and flowers, before they become a source of humidity, which would once again spread fungus to easily to the leaves and the fruit, if aver we have a rainy period. No tractor possible in our steep vineyards and narrow terraces, and as we would never use chemical weedkillers on our land, this is never ending hard work.

Klaus started behind the house early in spring

brushcutting

Then we went on to the upper terraces with Pinot Noir, which is an early “starter” among our grape varieties – also trained in gobelet shape, but with individual wooden poles, to bind up its much more supple stems later in summer.