The Work Goes On

The grapes have been harvested in the Meadowbank Vineyards. The big harvester managed to break a few of the big wooden posts at the beginning of some rows. This can happen easily when the harvester is not correctly lined up.
This morning I found Brendan, the Vineyard Manager, busy working away at replacing one of those posts.
He was using a 'post-hole-driver' attached to the tractor to drive in the new post. But before that he had to remove the old broken one. Not as easy as he had hoped.
Brendan looped a big chain around the post and with the tractor attempted to pull it out of the ground. The post was jammed in so tightly that the chain sliced right through the wood. Amazing!
This sort of scenario occurs because the Meadowbank Vineyard overlies old shingle riverbed full of rocks and ancient tightly packed shingle. Once the posts are in the ground they can be in for good.
In fact the whole of the Wairau Plains was once shingle river bed. The mighty snow-fed Wairau River meanders down from the mountains dropping huge amounts of shingle and silt as it advances. It is the steepest, fastest braided river in the South Island. These days it is kept in check from flooding by an elaborate system of groynes and stopbanks.
This makes for vast plains with a varying amount of soils lying over the top of the old shingles. This type of land is wonderful for the growing of grapes as it is very free draining and the roots of the vines reach far down to find water in the deeper layers.
So although it can be hard work establishing vineyards on this sort of land it is very worthwhile as grapes do extremely well in this environment and thus Marlborough wines are world -renown for their quality and flavours.
All this interesting information, however, is no help to Brendan when he is slaving away replacing key vineyard posts!