Journal | March 27, 2020
Hardscrabble Journal
Soil Matters
Pruning affords the opportunity to take stock of each vineyard block. Each vine is addressed, assessed, and shaped according to its vigor and form. Yesterday we pruned the “Five Rows” block of Cabernet Sauvignon. The vines were balanced, healthy, and well behaved. This block was planted as a trial, perhaps the most successful trial in the four decades of experimentation at Hardscrabble vineyards.
In the early days (1980s and 1990s), Virginian winegrowers struggled to ripen Cabernet Sauvignon. We thought that it was a heat issue: not enough. Hence planting on a southern facing slope would mitigate the problem. But it didn’t seem to help, even in the warm climes of Charlottesville.
In 2002 I traveled to Bordeaux, birthplace of Cabernet Sauvignon. Bordeaux is cooler than Virginia, but they manage to ripen Cabernet. Much of the Cabernet grown in Bordeaux is on an unremarkable, relatively flat region known as Medoc. Medoc has gravel-based soils, that are unable to retain much water. This was the Holy Grail of ripening Cabernet. It is not about heat, it is about water availability to the roots. The normally big, vigorous Cabernet vines were small and balanced in Medoc. If Cabernet has access to lots of water and nutrients it grows like a weed. And it produces wines that taste green and vegetal.
We don’t have gravel soils at Hardscrabble, but we do have some very nutrient poor, excessively well drained, rocky, shallow soils that provide similar stress to the vines. In 2003, five rows of Cabernet Sauvignon were planted on a remote corner of the farm that had previously been planted to apples. The apple trees had always struggled, so perhaps the vines would also.
The five rows continue to produce Linden’s best Cabernet Sauvignon wines. Understanding soils and their water holding capacity has become the key to the elevation of Linden’s red wines. And by the way, the slope faces northeast.
Linden Vineyards / Learn More / Latest at Linden | Journal: March 27, 2020