Viticulture

OUR SPECIAL Dry grown Vineyard, Premium Western Australian Wines, Mount Barker

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If you enjoy powerful red wine with mega flavour then you will love wine that is dry grown. If you have not yet experienced this sublime pleasure then welcome to an amazing new world that is hard to return from. Once sampled dry grown wines are never forgotten and though a rare in this commercial climate, a select few wineries in WA use this fruit mainly due to cost. Basically it means non irrigated which means you get small yeilds, small berries but each one is a power pack of flavour. Think of it like supermarket tomatoes against one of those beautiful home grown tomatoes, one full of flavour!

Our name, 'DryGrown', refers to a method of managing vineyards particularly in Australia where water is the most precious resource!

Dry Grown Vines rely on natural rainfall, often meaning slow growth and of course great patience! These vines grow deep roots into Australia's rich soils simply to survive on the moisture stored in the ground!

Dry Grown Vines are recognised as providing the most intense and complex berry flavours possible, and these powerful characteristics are captured in the fine wines made from the Dry Grown fruit!

The use of Dry Grown viticulture over time is regarded as the most intense yet most rewarding of all methods used in the world wine culture, a philosophy that we at Galafrey Wines are keen to emulate. From identifying the quality of fruit in the vineyard, matching it to the story of the grower, making the wines to reflect the vines and then to source a home for the end product

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A few quick notes on dry grown, which will hopefully increase your tasting enjoyment and/or impress your friends at the next dinner party:

Dry grown procedure reduces berry size and in doing so there are increased intensities of the fruit flavours (especially red)
Flavour of a grape is just inside the skin only and therefore the smaller the berries, the more flavour per unit volume.
Australia is the world's driest continent so our isolation, low population and lack of initiative in a long-term solution to water make this ideal.
All great estates throughout the world are dry grown this is a centuries old procedure in regions like Bordeaux in France and with a similar climate in Mount Barker it is logical to produce it this way.Dry grown gives the true definitive taste of wine.
Only a handful of vineyards in Western Australia are dry grown Brown Hill Estate, Moss Wood, Galafrey Wines and Gralyn are - and you will find rich intensities in their red wines.

Dry grown reds possess far more flavour than some of the intensively produced and often more expensive brands, which thrive on their name. Some of these WA reds by comparison have less in the way of true fruity taste merely a blend of oak, acid and little in the way of real grape flavours of dry grown wines.

Generally white grapes are not as distinctive as red when made by this process but there should be a slight difference and improvement in taste; in reds it is a marked difference. Many of our larger Western Australian brands have outstanding whites but their reds can be a disappointment due to their more intensive red grape growing process.Many vineyards are irrigated as they need high volumes purely for economic reasons and this will have an effect of less flavour.

Harvesting the grapes

alt The harvesting of wine grapes (vintage) is one of the most crucial steps in the process of winemaking.The time of harvest is determined primarily by the ripeness of the grape as measured by sugar, acid and tannins levels with winemakers basing their decision to pick based on the style of wine they wish to produce. The weather can also shape the timetable of harvesting with the threat of heat, rain, hail, and frost which can damage the grapes and bring about various vine disease. In addition to determining the time of the harvest, winemakers and vineyard owners must also determine whether to utilize hand pickers or mechanical harvesters.The question of using mechanical harvesting versus traditional hand picking is a source of contention in the wine industry. Mechanical harvesting of grapes has been one of the major changes in many vineyards in the last third of a century. First introduced commercially in the 1960s, it has been adopted in different wine regions for various economic, labor and winemaking reasons. In Australia, the reduced work force in the wine industry has made the use of mechanized labor almost a necessity.

Viticulture

Viticulture (from the Latin word for vine ) is the science, production and study of grapes which deals with the series of events that occur in the vineyard. When the grapes are used for winemaking, it is also known as viniculture.

Duties of the viticulturist include: monitoring and controlling pests and diseases,fertilizing,canopy management, monitoring fruit development and characteristics ,deciding when to harvest and vine pruning during the winter months. Viticulturists are often intimately involved with winemakers, because vineyard management and the resulting grape characteristics, provide the basis from which winemaking can begin.

Fertilizers can be placed into the categories of organic fertilizers (composed of plant or animal matter), or inorganic fertilizers (made of simple,non-carbonaceous chemicals or minerals).