Winemaker’s Bookshelf


Jackson’s two volumes on cool climate grape growing covermany essential aspects.


Production of Grapes and Wine in Cool Climates. This is the introductory book that I most frequently recommend to anyone new to the grape and wine industry. In one of my past columns, I also awarded it as the book most frequently replaced because I loaned it to someone and it never came back.


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David Jackson is a good writer. He handles his technical topics in a manner that can be absorbed with a minimum of snores, even if you must read at the end of a busy day. This is not to say that his material is elementary. His books cover a wide range of topics with up-to-date research findings.


The present two monographs deal with Pruning and Training (Monographs in Cool Climate Viticulture - 1, ISBN 0-908896-54-9) and Climate (Monographs in Cool Climate Viticulture - 2, ISBN 0-909049-34-1). He mentions that he intends to publish a third monograph on grape flavour but it doesn’t seem to have been printed yet.


I liked the way in which Jackson discussed the factors affecting grape growing. In the first monograph he opened with a chapter to outline the factors that set cool climate viticulture apart from other regions and then set out some of the fundamental terms used to describe grape trellis systems. This was followed by a discussion of the basic physiology of grape vines and the way in which the vine’s growth and productivity is affected by its environment.


Setting the stage in this way enabled the reader’s more rapid grasp of the ways in which different trellis styles affect the productivity and quality of a vineyard.


Before the discussion of trellis designs, there is consideration of the


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any of you may recall David Jackson’s and Danny Schuster’s book, The


By Gary Strachan Technical topics treated deftly


factors that affect decisions such as spur pruning versus cane pruning, and the appropriate number of buds to leave per metre of row length.


Jackson discusses a wide range of trellis styles and the way in which each is suited to sites which vary in vigour as affected by soils, temperature, light intensity, and season length. In each


case he illustrates the trellis design with photos and diagrams and follows up with a list of the pros and cons for each design.


The final two chapters deal with trouble shooting and young vine establishment, topics which should be read by anyone who contemplates the establishment of a new vineyard. The second


monograph deals with climate. This book


does not enter into the debate of whether climate change is man made, but rather examines the factors affecting long range climactic cycles and perturbations and their influence on viticulture.


The introduction asks the question of what is a cool climate with regard to grapes? The following chapters discuss the various grape growing regions of the world and explore how low temperature defines the limits of viticulture.


The following chapter explores the broader topic of terroir in some of the world’s great viticultural regions and the fact that they have a history of producing great wines in spite of huge differences in soil type.


To enable a meaningful comparison of the influence of climate on the different regions of the world there is


discussion of the various climate indices. All of us are familiar with (say) growing degree days, but the reality is that this index is only appropriate to compare vineyards at approximately the same latitude because it doesn’t take day length into consideration. On a practical level, the chapter on establishing a vineyard is the meat and potatoes of the book. Too often we try to grow a grape not matched to a site, only to find later that we’ve made a costly error.


There is a good listing of grape varieties that are appropriate for various Latitude Temperature Indices. Attention is drawn to the figures in chapter two which illustrate the influence of slope, wind, and orientation. In a region with such varied terrain as ours, these are important factors. The final two chapters compare data from selected viticultural regions and then look at the probability of climate change affecting any


particular region. This is an interesting exercise in which sites with similar climates vary in season length, rainfall, and ability to ripen a given grape variety.


An important factor is variation in the growth habit of different varieties. It isn’t enough to consider the season length or heat units required for each variety. We must also consider the typical temperature and rainfall cycle as it occurs throughout the season of the viticultural region.


The final chapter examines the history of climate change, both from natural cycles and from man made activities. The bottom line is that the question is complex. If you have been growing Pinot gris successfully on a site and anticipate that climate change will raise the temperature, don’t be in a hurry to upgrade to Cabernet sauvignon.


— Gary Strachan’s profile is posted on LinkedIn.


British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Summer 2014


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