Another Beginning - Vintage 2020
Planting marsanne vines at Troon Vineyard in Oregon’s Applegate Valley
Just last week, the vineyard was buried in snow, and the vines were slumbering in the coldness of days with little sunshine. Today the sun was shining, and there was a hint of spring in the air as January released its frigid grip on the Applegate Valley. But now the cycle that came to a close with harvest 2019 begins again, and the vines are about to awaken for their labors in vintage 2020. Looking over the snow in the vineyard and the white peaks of the Siskiyou Mountains surrounding us, I cannot help but feel optimistic about this upcoming vintage. Now, after years of effort, the rewards of Biodynamics are showing in our vines and our wines.
At Troon, it is not only the start of another of Mother Nature’s cycles but the addition of new layers of nuance as we expand and develop our practice of biodynamics each year. From pruning to picking, a vintage year at Troon Vineyard follows several tracks: biodynamics, organics, and Mother Nature’s. Of course, these all overlap in many ways, but in others, while complimentary, often they don’t. Weaving between threats and disease to craft positive, pro-active strategies in the vineyard is a daily conundrum. Biodynamics demands planning.
When it comes to most environmental threats, we are lucky, and I have to admit we don’t face many of the insect and weather threats that most farmers live with every year. The Applegate Valley is a wonderful place to grow things, and we don’t have many of those issues. Warm, dry summers combined with cold, but not bitter winters make this valley an ideal spot not only for vines but for many other crops. I remember when our biodynamic consultant, Andrew Beedy, first visited Troon Vineyard and told us this was the perfect place to farm biodynamically. No matter the crop, if you can’t farm those plants organically on a commercial scale, you probably should not be growing that crop there.
We are now deep into our replanting program, and this year we'll be farming almost as many newly planted vines as mature vines. That means two diverse farming strategies, one for our new healthy vines and another for our older vines, which are living with many diseases.
There are three primary reasons for the decision to completely replant our vineyard. First was the Red Blotch Virus, which was present in every block. That virus, combined with the resulting range of fungal trunk diseases were relentlessly squeezing the life out of the vines. Second, these issues were exacerbated by years of conventional farming that had devastated the microbiome of the soil, further weakening the vines. Third, many of the varieties planted were just not ideal for this site and climate. Three strikes and you’re out.
The Applegate Valley is such an ideal place to grow vines, it makes it even sadder that we have to replant these vines. If they had been appropriately selected and farmed, they would have lasted many decades. That is exactly what we hope for the vines we are planting now. Fifty or more years would mean that we had done our job well.
However, as Eric Idle sang, “Always look on the bright side of life.” This replanting project gives us the chance to do things right. The right vines in the right places planted the right way. The potential of healthy vines farmed properly on such an ideal site fuels that optimism I feel as we approach vintage 2020. Considering the excellent wine quality we have been able to achieve with fruit from these weakened vines, it is with exceptional excitement and confidence that I look forward to the wines these new healthy vines grown on healthy soils will give us as they mature.
Our replanting plan means that we are removing and planting ten acres of vines each year. Last year was the first ten, and now we’re getting ready for another ten, so we’ll have twenty acres of young vines in the ground by this summer. In 2019 we planted mourvèdre, syrah, marsanne, roussanne, grenache, tannat, and malbec. This year carignan, vermentino, and more syrah, grenache, and mourvèdre. This replanting program will continue through 2023 when the entire estate has been replanted with a diverse range of southern French varieties.
In the meantime, our wearied old vines are giving their best as they try to hold out a few more harvests. While biodynamics is a long-term strategy, it has also saved us in the short-term as it has breathed new life into these vines. We are doing everything in the biodynamic and organic playbook to bring life to the soils around them and to assist them in taking in that nutrition. We can only hope this will make their last years more comfortable after years of stress. After all, a vine is not happy unless it is ripening grapes. They certainly look happier as they are producing more and better fruit each vintage.
Happy soils make happy vines, that ripen happy grapes, that make happy wines, that make people happy. That is the definition of biodynamics.
