Wool in the vineyard?

Something is happening in the vineyard! At this time of year we can literally watch the sap shoot into the dry vines. The first new shoots and eyes look shyly into the light and stretch themselves in the first rays of sun. Each eye is still protected by a small coat made of very thin fibers. It looks like wool and that is why we winegrowers say that the vines are "in the wool".

With every degree of warmth and every ray of sunshine, the little eyes grow until they burst out of the wool. That is the moment of budding!

And that is also the moment when we winegrowers tend to get nervous when we look at the thermometer. Because without wool, the little eyes are defenseless against the frost. There is a risk of frost until the beginning of May - it's like an annual crime thriller. We don't need the crime scene at this time - we're already biting our fingernails with excitement.

Due to climate change, spring comes a little earlier every year... but this also increases the risk, as winter setbacks can destroy all the flowers. So this Easter weekend in Bordeaux, radical measures had to be taken again: In France, nature is more advanced than here, and when it started to freeze again, the winegrowers put large oil candles in the vineyards. They provide smoke and warmth and thus the crucial one or two degrees difference. This is a method that is also permitted in organic farming, but of course it is not good for nature.

An alternative is the air turbulence caused by low-flying helicopters or huge wind turbines that winegrowers use as frost protection measures... in a desperate attempt to prevent a total crop failure.

Photo: Frost protection with oil candles in Bordeaux France

Fortunately, we have not had to resort to such measures in Weyher so far. Our vineyards, with their south or southwest exposure and a constant wind that blows down over our vineyards from the Palatinate Forest, are naturally ideally protected from frost. We just have to make sure that the grass is cut short so that no cold blockage can form under the awakening vines. Even just before sunrise, when the night is at its coldest, it rarely freezes in our vineyards in spring. The last time it was a bitterly cold April in the 1970s, our Grandma Graf tells us. We lost the entire harvest then... and that was true not just in Weyher, but in the entire Palatinate.

That's why we're always happy when our vineyards don't start the spring so boldly and keep their woolly coats on for a long time.