Mini-mowers on the move

One way to make your vineyard greener is to get a little bit sheepish.
Spring is the season of new life on the vineyard, as buds burst through on the vines and the leaves seem to sprout before our eyes. At Yealands Estate, it’s also lambing season for our flock of Babydoll sheep – not the usual sight on a vineyard but just one of Peter Yealands’ many innovations that aim to minimise the environmental impacts of wine production.
Peter has imported and begun breeding these miniature sheep, known as Babydolls, to reduce the need for mowing the vineyard with fuel-powered, emission-generating machinery. Using sheep to graze among the vines is quite a widespread practice, but eventually they develop a taste for the vines and fruit so become a liability as the growing season progresses. However, because of their small stature, our flock of pint-sized organic mowers pose no threat to the vines and happily munch away, year round, keeping the grass and weeds at bay while also supplying a handy dose of organic matter.
Such innovations play a large role in our aim to become a world leader in sustainable wine production, as we continuously look for ways to reduce our environmental footprint. We take the view that every vineyard operation creates a new opportunity to introduce a greener approach; whether it’s finding new ways to recycle and reuse by-products of our operations, making best use of our natural resources or employing new technologies that help to reduce our CO2 emissions.
One of our most recent sustainability ventures combines recycling and use of new technology to make huge energy savings at the winery. The Yealands Estate Bio Mass Boiler will turn vine prunings into an energy source and eliminate some 22 tonnes of LPG use per year.
We typically compost and use our vine prunings as mulch around the vines, however, with the installation of our custom-built boiler (currently under construction in the United States) about 10 percent of the prunings will be baled after each vintage and burnt. The energy released will be used to heat the winery’s water and glycol, reducing our total carbon footprint for LPG to zero.
Thankfully, the huge task of pruning is now behind us for the year and while our vineyard team anxiously watch out frosts that could damage the new vine buds, my winemaking team and I are busy preparing the 2010 vintage wines for bottling and release. It is an outstanding vintage with our wines showing intense pure flavours and varietal character.
Here in the Awatere, the growing season was notable for its cooler-than-usual flowering conditions and lower rainfall from fruit set to harvest. These are challenging conditions for the vines, but great news for the flavour intensity of our wines.
I am particularly excited that this year we are releasing a Gruner Veltliner – a white wine variety more typically associated with northern hemisphere vineyards. Because of its zippy acidity and clean flavours, it’s a particularly food-friendly wine –so look out for it as something new and delicious to try.
Peter Yealands
www.yealands.co.nz