Understanding Vineyard Soils PDF
Preview Understanding Vineyard Soils
Understanding Vineyard Soils Understanding Vineyard Soils Second Edition Robert E. White 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data White, R. E. (Robert Edwin), 1937– Understanding vineyard soils / Robert E. White. — 2nd edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–19–934206–8 (alk. paper) 1. Grapes—Soils. 2. Viticulture. 3. Terroir. I. Title. S597.G68W45 2015 634.8—dc23 2014024000 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents Foreword vii Preface to the Second Edition ix 1 What Makes a Healthy Soil? 1 2 Site Selection and Soil Preparation 30 3 The Nutrition of Grapevines 67 4 Where the Vine Roots Live 117 5 The Living Soil 175 6 Putting It All Together 217 Appendices 243 References 247 Index 255 v Foreword There is no branch of agriculture in which soils are more rhapsodized and vener- ated than in viticulture. It is easy to understand why this is so, just as it is easy to understand why our ancestors worshipped the sun and the moon, feared an eclipse, and ascribed meaning to thunder. The aromas and flavors of wine are astonishingly diverse and at best are com- pellingly beautiful. Few processed agricultural products command a higher price than the world’s finest wines. Since viticulture and winemaking alone are unable to replicate the quality of benchmark fine wines in secondary locations, it is evi- dent that something in the environment in which the wine came into being gov- erns its fundamental quality. What might that be? The preferred candidate for most wine drinkers is the soil. It can be seen, touched, measured, dug, even smelled. Vines roots penetrate deeply into often poor, rocky soils. A vine rootstock spends its entire life (sometimes a century or more) in one place. In certain key European wine regions such as Burgundy, one winegrower making his wine in a uniform manner from the same grape variety will produce a very different wine from two vineyards 10 meters or less apart. It is hard, confronted with sensory evidence of this sort, and lifted by the emotion that great wine provokes, not to set about constructing a mythology of soil. Enter Professor Robert White, soil scientist. In Understanding Vineyard Soils, he describes what soil is and how vineyard soils differ from one another. (Soils are not rocks and are much more than an accumulation of minerals.) We learn about the life forms in the soils and about its air spaces, structure, and profile. vii viii Foreword The presence of water in the soil is of huge significance for vines: is it best to rely on what nature delivers, or is irrigation a wiser strategy? To what extent are vines nourished by the soil medium in which their roots are buried, and to what extent do they draw sustenance from light and air? What task do roots perform, and how do they do it? How does insect life in the soil favor and challenge viti- culture? What, exactly, is a “healthy soil” for vines, and how might a winegrower set about creating one? What do organic and biodynamic approaches to vineyard husbandry bring, or neglect? How will climate change affect the world’s vineyard soils? This book will be of great practical value to anyone growing vines or look- ing after a vineyard, but it is also essential reading for those wine lovers who are prepared to demythologize their thinking about the soils in which vines grow. The soil doesn’t explain the flavor of a wine, any more than thunder portends the wrath of the gods. A vine is a plant, not a person; it does not feed but photosynthesizes. A soil’s structural properties, its biota and the water relations it offers to the plant, might be far more important than its precise mineral spectrum. Professor White tells us what can be known at present about vineyard soils (hence the importance of this revised edition), rather than what can be fabulated. Aroma and flavor in wine are the product of a series of hugely complex equa- tions. Soil is of great significance; so too are landforms, climate, weather, plant genetics, biochemistry, organic chemistry, and human cultural practices. This book will help you lay the groundwork for a deeper understanding of the complex issues that underlie a pleasure both simple and profound: drinking wine. Andrew Jefford, journalist and author Prades le Lez, France Preface to the Second Edition What makes wine great is the interaction of the roots and the soil. The complexity, the character, the suppleness of the wine is reflected in that complex relationship. ■■ Quoted in Daily Wine News, April 19, 2010, and attributed to one of the fifth-generation winemakers at Perrin & Fils, owners of Chateau de Beaucastel in the Chateauneuf-du-Pape appellation, southern Rhone, France I would like to start this preface by acknowledging many colleagues and friends who have assisted in various ways in making this second edition possible. First, I would like warmly to thank Dr. Mark Krstic, Dr. Robert Bramley, Dr. Tony Proffitt, and Dr. Ian Porter who read and commented on one or more chapters. In addition, I would like to thank all those who supplied material of one kind or another that has been reproduced here—Dr. Lilanga Balachandra, Dr. Tapas Biswas, Dr. Robert Bramley, Dr. Eduard Hoffman, Dr. Jonathan Holland, Dr. Mark Imhof, Professor Greg Jones, Mr. Brad Johnston, Mr. Richard Merry, Mr. Martin Peters, Dr. Tony Proffitt, Mr. Stuart Proud, Dr. Loothar Rahman, Dr. Belinda Rawnsley, and Dr. Melanie Weckert. My research for Understanding Vineyard Soils and the earlier book Soils for Fine Wines has taken me to many exciting wine regions, where I have met numer- ous charming winegrowers, as well as been given the opportunity to sample some memorable wines. Winegrowing is truly one of the few completely vertically inte- grated agricultural industries, where consumers are aware of, and appreciate, the connection between the soil in which the vines grow and the seductive liquid in the glass. Although this revised edition retains the essentials of what I have learned from these experiences, it also updates knowledge about the soil–wine nexus that has evolved in the past five years. In particular, chapter 1 of this edition expands on the concept of soil health and provides a broader picture of the diversity of soils on which grapevines grow around the world. Chapter 2 offers more practical details about site selection and ix
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