Grafting - a sign of the times!
The process of grafting has been used in the past to change varieties as wine fashion and demand changes. Back in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when there was the dramatic change in demand from red wine consumption to white wine consumption, production could not keep up. Everyone was seeking white fruit.
Apart from planting new vineyards, the quickest way of solving the demand/supply imbalance was to graft over unwanted varieties to those in more demand. Previously used methods were resurected as well as new techniques were developed in order to attempt to improve the strike rate - always a problem with grafting.
The same demand for white wine throughout Australia has been happening for the past 2 - 3 years and hence grafting is back on the radar.
Why graft at the Gherardi vineyard?
Back 10 or more years we were in the middle of the red wine boom and so Merlot was the only variety planted on the Gherardi vineyard. Over the past few years things have changed and we have planted a small area of the newly fashionable white grape Viognier as well as grafted over some of the established Merlot. The aim now was to bring the vineyard into balance with 1.25ha each of Viognier and Merlot.
Who grafts?
A professional grafter was initially used to get through the job as time is the essence. Last year’s results were patchy due to the cool season and the lateness of the actual grafting. My task over the past few weeks was to go through and regraft those vines which did not take last year.
The idea is to place a small bud of the new variety into the trunk of the old/existing variety.
This close up shows the bud wrapped in budding tape and starting to swell.
And this is the growth we are looking for in say 4 to 6 weeks time. Constant training this year will repay next year with a good chance of obtaining a crop of fruit.
Vineman
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