Aches and Pains
I am typing this newsletter with the only part of my body that doesn’t ache 🤕.
It’s been a harrowing few weeks for us at Kapitel Zwei Wine as we prepare the vineyard for planting — today the vines were shipped from France to Austria 🎉. They were suppose to arrive last week but I delay the shipment a few times due to cold weather. If you can believe it, we had a few centimetres of snow earlier this month, followed by a dry period.
While the previous owner helped quite a bit in transforming this overgrown land into a vineyard back in March, a significant amount of manual work was still required, including lots of root pulling, raking and stone removal. In addition, and to my surprise, the size of the vineyard has also grown a bit and now reaches an even higher part of the hillside, which also needs to be prepared. Thankfully, across all of Austria there are plenty of agriculture services available including the rental of farming equipment from Boels and labor from Maschinering. I can highly recommend both.
Below is a photo of me using a rototiller machine, which at 300 kilos and 16 horsepower handles like a rodeo horse, meaning you have little to no control. Despite these challenges it got the job done in turning the soil and making it soft for drilling holes. Behind me is after using the machine and in front of me is what the soil looked like beforehand.
I mentioned root pulling earlier and this is one of the beasts we had to pull out. We came across about a dozen of these and I am sure there are more lurking in the ground. I may switch to dynamite soon to blow them out of the ground as this is back breaking work.
If you look closely in the background you will see three sticks which indicate where the first three rows of Chenin Blanc will be planted. We estimated just shy of 38 vines, spaced one one meter apart, will fit in each row.
Improving the Soil
If you recall from the December newsletter the vineyard soil is in very good health, but it lacks some minerals. Simultaneously, I am already thinking about my university thesis paper, so I have decided to combine them. One aspect of my thesis will focus on sustainable farming, while the other half will focus on how to communicate this topic to consumers. While I have several ideas to improve my soil, without the use of chemicals, one will focus on crushed oyster shells.
As stated in this article:
“When ground into a fine powder, oyster shells are a high-quality soil additive due to their calcium and micronutrient content. Adding crushed shells to the soil produces a long-lasting release of nutrients. This results in regulating pH levels and increasing the intake levels of fertilizer for your garden plants.”
The idea hit me after enjoying a few oysters at Rinkhy, a quaint restaurant run by Andrew Rinkhy, a Canadian expat in Vienna. After sharing my story with him he agreed to save the used shells he serves, which I would then pick up each month. Tip: Visit Rinkhy on Saturday from 16:00 - 18:00 for oysters in the half-shell and you will not only enjoy a tasty meal, but you will be supporting two small businesses.
Before turning the shells into a fine powder I’ll need to heat them on a BBQ grill to kill any bacteria and then I will pulverize them with a sledge hammer — if anyone has other ideas, please do share.
Next weekend I plan to collect cow manure to start the 500P fertilizer process. I’ll be sure to make some videos of that for all to see.
Marketing Update
Hopefully you noticed the new heading for the newsletter. It’s a work in progress, but it’s in the direction of the new design of the wine labels, which I should be ready to unveil in the next newsletter — how’s that for a cliffhanger? 😬
I also produced some t-shirts to commemorate the historic premier planting. Anyone who comes to help will get one - a future collector’s item. And finally, Kapitel Zwei Wine can now be searched and found on Google Maps — Apple Maps has also been applied for, but the process is a bit slower.
Thanks again for joining me on this journey and if you have any questions or happen to be in Krems drop me an email.
