By David Wood

Well now that we have reached the chilly part of the year, what do you plan to do over the next few weeks or months? My Briars calendar indicates that for those members with vines planted, we need to consider the best time to prune and tidy up the vineyard ready for the new spring growth of the vines (and the weeds). We also needed to source some replacement vines for those that have succumbed to the Eutypa disease, which is

present in the vineyard (thanks to Steve Brown for the new vines).

Thanks to lockdown restrictions, pruning etc. may be delayed again this year? Last year we had a window of opportunity to prune between lockdown periods, not sure how it will work out this year.

What else is on the list to do over winter? My own list includes:

• Use up fruit and veg in the freezer for either wine or preserves.
• Rack-off demijohns of fruit wines, ready to back sweeten, prior to bottling.
• Keep wines warm if possible, to complete fermentation (heat pad, electric blanket?)
• Towards the start of spring, once the weather has started to warm up, check progress of MLF in my Cabernet. Hopefully the Sentia Malic acid test strips will be
• available by then.
• Sort out the cellared wines in my shed and inside in the wine rack.
• Rearrange the shed to make access and handling of demijohns easier.
• Prune my fruit trees and thin out self-sown fennel, so that it does not take over the backyard.
• Think bout grafting some new varieties onto my fruit trees.
• Maybe cold smoke some cheese and make some preserved meat such as salami, bresaola, turkey leg ham or pork belly.