The young vine takes about four years to reach its fruit-bearing stage. During this time the plant requires to be properly trained so as to obtain the best results from the growing grape. Now, although there are many different systems of rearing vines, yet in the main they consist of an upright stem or trunk, and an upper part or crown—the latter varying considerably in shape. Thus we have the "gooseberry-bush" style, which is employed for those vines requiring short pruning. Then there is the "trellising" style, for the long-pruned varieties, in which the vine is trained to a great distance along a wire. Indeed, these two methods may be taken to represent the two main styles of training the vine; although the different modifications used in various countries are almost endless.
There is, however, one important point which requires attention, no matter what system is adopted, and it is the height of the vine above the ground. The nearer a vine is to the ground, the more radiated light and heat it receives, and as a consequence its resulting nine is stronger. In vines so near the ground, also, the alkaline dust arising from the soil neutralises the natural acid of the fruit, and prejudicially affects the fermentation of the wine.
As a matter of fact the earthy taste—GOUT DE TERROIR—which is sometimes present in wine, is believed to be caused by a certain amount of soil being present on the grapes during fermentation. This must be looked to, especially in the warmer districts, where by giving the wine a greater distance above the ground, a lighter, more delicate, and better wine, quite free from the foregoing demerit, is produced.
The testimony of experts throughout Australia is unanimously in favour of raising the vine sufficiently above the ground, so as to keep the grapes well off the soil, and also to provide for the free circulation of air beneath. It is true that in some parts of the Continent the practice for ages has been to keep the vines well down against the earth. But this is done to secure the advantages of the radiated heat, and enable the grapes to ripen. In Australia, however, even in the elevated districts, the sun is usually warm enough to ripen the grapes without this being necessary.
THE GROWING OF THE GRAPE—ON PRUNING.
Before leaving these references to the growing of the grape I purpose making a few remarks upon pruning, a subject which is as interesting as it is important. The objects of pruning are manifold. By it the cultivation of the wine is facilitated; the best results are obtained from each variety of grape; the yield is increased; the product is more uniform in character; and the quality of the wine is vastly improved. But a great deal of the work of pruning is so entirely technical that it would utterly fail to possess any attraction for the general reader. Consequently I shall attempt no more than to briefly refer to those particular matters which are of Australian concern.
Now, it is laid down as a rule for pruning that some vines should be pruned short, while others require long pruning; that is to say, one variety of wine requires to be repressed, as it were, and in another the branches have to be kept long to produce a superior quality of wine. The explanation is that while the sap is on its way through the roots, the stem, the branches, and the shoots of the vine, for the production of fruit, it is distilled out, so to speak, during its passage from the earth to the fruit. As Mr. George Sutherland prettily puts it, the grape is, in fact, the crowning product of the whole plant. In this way, the farther the sap has to travel through the whole vine on its way to the growing fruit, the better will the resulting wine be.
To a certain extent this is true of all vines, but more especially so in the case of Shiraz and some of the Pinots. In various districts of France, in order to bring the grape to perfection, the vine-growers will train out their main branches along trellises to a length of 50 and even 60 feet, so as to give the sap the longest possible distance to travel; and, further, for the purpose of concentrating into the fruit the whole result of the wine, all the buds and little shoots, which would distract therefrom, are carefully taken away. This gives to the vine a very curious look, but it serves well to illustrate how greatly wines differ as to whether they require short or long pruning. It also helps to a better understanding of the two main styles of training the vine already mentioned, namely, the "gooseberry bush" and the "trellising."
The fact that this elaboration of the sap in long-pruned vines requires a long distance to intervene between the roots and the fruit itself, is one of considerable importance. It is necessary to remember, however, that cultivation of this kind requires additional labour. Moreover, one of the principal reasons why the short-pruned vine has become such a favourite in Australia is that it is a labour-saving vine, and therefore its adoption is almost a necessity. But, as Mr. Sutherland remarks, "there is no doubt that Australia can never hope to produce in any quantity the finest qualities of wine until the vignerons attend more to those practices which depend essentially upon the fundamental fact that the sap flows with different habits through different varieties of vines; and, therefore, that some vines require short pruning, while it is even more important to remember that others will only yield satisfactorily under a system of long pruning."
In a paper on viticulture, at Mildura, which was drawn up for the Royal Commission on Vegetable Products in 1890, Mr. Francois de Castella, a former expert to the Board of Viticulture, Victoria, has condensed so much knowledge within a small compass that I have quoted the following:—