User Profile

Colin Free

Harvest is rolling and so is the wildlife

COLIN FREE THE wine grape harvest is now in full swing, with the earlier ripening white varieties such as Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio coming off first. Although the other whites and reds won’t be too far away. And I’m delighted to...

21 Feb 2025

Wine Grapes

Warm welcome to the new year

THE big picture scenario in the wine job will not change until a joint effort to remove the more than 20 million litres of surplus of red wine hanging over the industry like a dark cloud is addressed. Without it, all we can...

21 Jan 2025

News

Getting into the swing of the season

GRAPEVINES are liking the recent dry weather; most varieties have completed the flowering process and are at the setting stage. Obviously if we have a poor fruit set, we have fewer berries and overall, less fruit, but it still all looks...

25 Nov 2024

Wine Grapes

Farmers’ salty teardrops as snails are en route for Paris

MACHINE pruning is ongoing – with still a fair way to go. And, at the same time, trying to do a tidy job to lessen the inevitable and expensive hand clean up job, is important. The annual wine grape crush figures for last year are also out (you can...

20 Jul 2024

Wine Grapes

Snails racing as big chill exposes job ahead

It’s pruning time in the vineyard, and the leaves have gone, exposing a view of the job ahead. Vines will be machine pruned and given a tidy up by hand later on. There are also plenty of industry meetings on currently – with bugger all good news...

23 Jun 2024

Wine Grapes

All’s quiet, but sadly it might get even quieter

WE have just had 11 marvellous millimetres of rain from the recent event – and it was most welcome. While all our grapevines are just about dormant, they will still require wet roots to keep them happy until we get...

20 May 2024

North West Farmer

Good news amid export gloom

THE wine grape harvest has been fast and furious, and February was flat out, with the white varieties coming in with a rush – and with pleasing yields and high quality. The earlier rains had caused issues, as they do, but also assisted in...

16 Mar 2024

Wine Grapes

Weather, low prices add pressure

VINES are looking pretty good generally, but once again we are also having another season with a lot of disease pressure – the best you can say about the end of 2023 and the start of another year is the nitrogen which...

20 Jan 2024

Wine Grapes

Pushing into market headwinds

THE wine job is in a bit of a mess right now – and somehow the industry needs to remove at least 20 per cent of current plantings to try and fix it. And those vines have to be gone in a relatively short period of time. With the lack of...

16 Dec 2023

Opinion

Replacing red with white to help sales

SPRING has arrived but the temperature has been pretty variable. The vines are kicking along and as we near flowering some consistent warm weather would be great to aid a good fruit set. Scale have been a problem in the past few years in the vines...

23 Oct 2023

North West Farmer

Snails set the pace

The wine grape harvest concluded a couple of weeks ago – finally – with all the fruit thankfully meeting the required sugar levels. There was a bit of botrytis in the last patches to be picked, which led to some fruit shaking off in front of the...

18 May 2023

North West Farmer

Harvest moves to later varieties

THE possibly-not-happening, never-starting and now never-finishing grape harvest is still with us. The later varieties are struggling to ripen due to the cool weather, short days and the bloody rain events that are diluting the sugar in...

20 Apr 2023