Which Mollard and Castets Are You Drinking???

Just curious as to which Mollard and Castets everybody is drinking today??

Back in 2011 (by crackey), there was a thread on Mollard by Jono (TN: an non-Savoie French Alps Red - WINE TALK - WineBerserkers).
This is a nearly extinct grape grown in the HauteAlpes of France. Sounds like an interesting grape & I’d love to try one. Alas,
I’ve never done did see’d a wine from the HauteAlpes in my shopping.

Nobody has brought up the Castets grape before that I can tell. It’s a variety that’s grown in the Aveyron of SW France, the home of
Roquefort.

Why do I give a rat’s a$$ about these??? Because they’re the next big thing and should be being planted all up & down the coast of Calif.
When I was touring Bedrock last week w/ JoelPeterson, we wandered thru an experimental block where they have some interesting new stuff
planted…including Mollard & Castets. Joel promised me I’d get the first Bedrock bottlings from these grapes so’s I could
brag that “I followed them from the very start”!!!
Tom

When you go to JancisRobinson’s grape book, she mentions that Mollard was found in an old vnyd in Sonoma
and Castets in an old vnyd in the RussianRvrVlly. No doubt where Morgan got the plant material.
Tom

MTP posted on Facebook a picture of a Mollard vine the other day!

Yup, Drew…looks like the exact same Mollard vine I looked at the week before. If you looked closely, you coulda
seen my footprints in the ground…but Morgan cropped it off.
The vnyd in the background looks pretty unkempt. Joel related that tilling the soil for weed control actually destroys
a lot of the organic/plant material. So they’re trying just going over the ground crop and crimping it over to act as a mulch
to preserve the organics in the soil. I didn’t quite understand how that’d get the organic material into the soil, though.
Maybe Morgan will come here & explain.
Tom

Tom, I just finished a book on the use of no-till farming and the history of "black earth, an ancient form of biomass soil amendment (Terra Preta by Ute Schueb).

The September, 2008, issue of National Geographic introduced me to the archaeological discovery of countless sites where “between 2,500 and 500 years ago in the Amazon Basin, people created deep layers of carbon-enriched earth, enhancing the fertility of poor, shallow soils” (92). The trash, broken earthenware, campfire ashes, and fermented poo all were buried to create a super dirt that retained moisture, resisted erosion, and is believed to have been so precious to the locals that wars were fought over control of these agriculturally friendly patches.

The secret is in the charcoal and ash, which serves as an ideal medium for beneficial microorganisms.

The Nat Geo issue addresses all sorts of soil fertility destruction including, as MTP has mentioned in the past, ground compaction from repeatedly driving heavy tractors over the ground.

Interesting, Drew. Thanks for the info. It was clear that they are using bioChar at Bedrock. Joel mentioned it a few times. No signs of fermented poo that I saw, though!!
Tom

But will the Sonoma grapes adequately express the HauteAlpes terroir that we have become so accustomed to in Mollard?

P Hickner

No…of course not, Peter. They will far exceed the terroir of the HauteAlpes!!
Tom

No…of course not, Peter. They will far exceed the terroir of the HauteAlpes!!
Tom[/quote]

In my opinion what might be termed “unkempt” is actually better than over-tilled “clean” vineyards. In the library block we are using a roller-crimper, which was originally developed by the Rodale Institute for non-till row crops. This has several advantages. By crimping our cover crop residue we create a thick mulch over the soil which helps hold in water and suppress weeds. Tillage, even the light disking we do in other parts of the vineyard, turns soil over which burns out organic material and the soil microflora and fauna. It seems counterproductive to me to spend enormous resources to buy and spread compost, buy and seed cover crops, etc. and then reverse the intended effects by tilling. When soil organic matter is higher there is less erosion, dramatically better water capture and holding (a 1% increase in soil organic matter is about 16000 gallons per acre of additional water holding capacity according to several studies), a more complete soil foodweb (grapevines absorb nutrients through a very complex set of microbial relationships), less potential for tractor pan build-up and a slower breakdown of things like N stored in the roots of leguminous cover crops (like an extended release rather than all at once). This reasoning is why non-till agriculture, both organic and conventional, in general has gone up substantially over the last couple of decades across the entire country. We have also found that on those rows where we have seeded insectary blends for beneficial insects that late blooming winter annuals that would normally get disked in prior to flowering in many years continue to bloom through the crimping process as only plants that are going into senescence lay down well when crimped (we are basically just speeding up their decline). At Bedrock Vineyard, where we have great natural predation of vineyard pests already this is less important, but in places like CoCo and Lodi, where monoculture and bad cultural practices exist that heighten the chance of things like spider mite, leafhoppers, mealybug, etc. this is huge.

There are some drawbacks- controlling vole/gopher populations can be a challenge and obviously the vineyard doesn’t “look” like other vineyards but so far I am really pleased with the results we have achieved. Granted, we also had a wetter winter and had bodacious cover crops so that was quite helpful too.

These are some photos I took at Katushas’ in Lodi on Friday. The row that was crimped has suppressed weed growth, while the row next to it that was disked in the Spring has a gnarly Johnsongrass infestation (a pox of a weed!).

Thanks for chiming in w/ details on that block, Morgon. My usage of “unkempt” was not in a derogatory vein. When I see a picture of a vnyd freshly tilled between the rows
and the strip under the vines is a desert from RoundUp usage…that to me is “ugly”. I give EmilioCastelli, over near Occidental, a raft of $hit about his being the
ugliest vnyd in all Calif because he farms by Fukuoka. All that really matters is the quality of the fruit that comes out of it & his Nebbiolo is one of the best.
Sorry you couldn’t join your Dad and Susan&me the other week. The party proceeded w/o you, though.
Tom