Bud-Rubbing and the Gods of Wine
Earning my keep at a Vineyard in New Zealand.
We work all morning on the pinot block, ducking down close on each vine. Our job today is to snap off the tender shoots that grow out of the trunks this time of year. Vines will put all their energy, we’re told, into those smaller new shoots if left on their own and their fruit won’t be as good come autumn. We want each one of these rough-barked little beings to push their spring greatness into the weathered old arms of last year. Less green now, more grapes later.
After a while my back hurts from bending, and later my knees ache from squatting instead. But there are rows and rows to bud-rub, as they call this work, so I push past the stiffness and remind myself I’m strong. I’m doing this voluntarily after all, as a WWOOFer in exchange for room and board at the winery. Alongside me are Nico and Fanny, a young couple from France, traveling the world and living out of their car for the next year.
I acknowledge each shoot as I snap it off. Don’t waste your energy on this little guy, I silently tell the plant, you have grapes to make soon. Each vine is different than that which came before and the next different still. In perfect rows and on rail-straight wires, they are the chaos in this organized world.
Across the block from us James the vineyard manager is making his way row by row as well. Head down, he wraps each vine’s arms around the wires, training them to grow just so. He moves steadily with intense focus. What a thing, I think, to be in charge of all these thousands of vines. Each is a child whose future is yours.
When we finish the block, we all reach skyward to stretch the muscles in our backs. Mine feel stronger now three days into this work. My hands have learned to rip off the buds and shoots without effort. I could do a few more rows if there were more to do.
But we are done now and it’s time for lunch. We remove our gloves and smack them together against our thighs as we stride in across the grass for sandwiches, passing under olive trees and toward the farmhouse with its trampoline and half-barrel herb gardens. Behind us, James continues his work vine by vine, preparing for summer and a distant harvest. And wondering, I have no doubt, what this wine will taste like.
I have learned many things here in this corner of the world, the first being that each glass and every bottle of wine is the collective effort of hundreds of hands. Grapes must be the most beloved of fruits, I think. Each is a project, each a promise.
Last night we awoke at 2am to the frost alarms, big sirens that sound when the temperature dips close to freezing. With all the new spring shoots unfurling filled with water, a frost would be detrimental this time of year. The aging vineyard owner Wim was out of bed and out in the fields without hesitation. The rest of us lay inside with our electric blankets turned up while he hand-started the frost fans. These giant windmills blow high across the hectares of vines pulling warm air down and staving off potential frost.
Galileo said that wine is sunlight held together by water. But it seems out here that it’s held together by hard work. And like most things, by love. There is always work to be done, and only one right time to do it.
But we do it year after year because, at the end of it all, there’s the way that liquid looks as we pour it into our glass. There’s the way it smells — like spring and summer and autumn all at once — when we hold it to our nose. And there’s the way we become, as the ancient Greeks always believed, like gods when we drink it.
(All photos were taken at Julicher Estate in Martinborough, New Zealand. The vineyard is for sale. If you’re interested: http://www.julicher.co.nz/)
