Greetings Vonderlingers
The world is going through quite extraordinary times. We are very blessed here to be on the farm. We have so much space to roam around in (635 ha, over 1500 acres), vineyards to walk through, or mountains to climb, at this beautiful autumnal time of year. There isn’t a day I don’t appreciate how lucky we are, compared to so many people living in apartments or houses with hardly any garden and small children to entertain.
Our industry has been badly hit by the government banning all sales, deliveries and export of wine. Initially, we were banned from finishing wines off in the cellars and picking any late grapes (which luckily we didn’t have.) This was relaxed after industry bodies approached the relevant government ministers and the winemakers were allowed back in the cellars.
Weather-wise we had the most amazing full moon (pink moon) last week and also a really wonderful downpour of rain last Sunday (25mm) which the vines desperately needed on Vondeling because we had been unable to give a postharvest irrigation due to repairing the dam, which we finished just in time before lockdown.
If you are feeling in need of a pick me up, I can thoroughly recommend our Methode Ancestrale bubbly.
So other than that, there is not much news. Our President seems to be doing a great job and I don’t envy him the decisions he has to make in the coming weeks.
Fight on and stay safe,
Julian
