More vineyard flora

Well, Spring appears to be on its way, so I thought I would share a photo of one the first flowers to appear amongst the vines each year.

These are the flowers of Tussilago farfara or Colt’s Foot. Strangely the flowers appear before the leaves, which themselves don’t emerge until May. Apparently smoking the dried leaves is a folk-remedy for curing coughs (Tussilago is derived from tussis, Latin for ‘cough’). I'm looking forward to next time I have a cough!

Bottle cellar commissioned

Just a photo to show that the new bottle cellar is being put to good use. These bottles are what remains of 2004 harvest. I’ll be bottling the 2005s in April… only another 8 full cages to fit in.

Note the steps to the right of the photo… last time my father was here he built ‘furniture’ (basically a series of ramps) to enable full cages to be moved in and out of the cellar. The system is quite breathtaking in its complexity, but it does seem to work. Certainly better than carrying in bottles a dozen at a time (especially since that lintel is about 4’8" and made of very hard stone!)