Category: Viticulture

drone

Drones, Satellites, and Other Futuristic Vineyard Technology @ Insight 2023

Drones, Satellites, and Other Futuristic Vineyard Technology We gave a talk at #bcwine‘s Insight conference on “Drones, Satellites, and Other Futuristic Vineyard Technology”. The talk is here and the slide deck here. The topic came up because of requests from members to hear more about the state of tech and where we’re going for vineyards. We primarily covered: 1. Vineyard Spraying2.

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Christopher Mark March 17, 2023

cover crops

Should You Your Increase Vine Trunk Height?

Should we be increasing vine trunk height? This study says: Yes. “Characterisation of the vertical temperature gradient in the canopy reveals increased trunk height to be a potential adaptation to climate change” (https://oeno-one.eu/article/view/53650) It also says cover crops may cause a bigger temperature problem than we thought. The trunk height part grabs my attention because many winegrowers we talk/work with

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Christopher Mark January 24, 2023

A Christmas Reflection

“Without being bound to the fulfillment of our promises, we would never be able to keep our identities; we would be condemned to wander helplessly and without direction in the darkness of each person’s lonely heart, caught in its contradictions and equivocalities.” (Hannah Arendt) It’s been a major struggle to write my Christmas reflections this year. I’m 5 hours in

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Christopher Mark December 24, 2022

What’s Been Going On?

“Oh, the summer night, Has a smile of light, And she sits on a sapphire throne.” ― Bryan Procter ― So, it’s been a few weeks! I hope the season has been treating you well. I know many of you have been catching up on a bit of vacation before harvest. Tasting rooms have been busy and, even with a

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Christopher Mark September 13, 2022

soil

What’s up With the Okanagan?

We can never stop asking “Where are we going?” If you stop and think about how many of your conversations, especially around our work in the wine industry, focus on this very question. And there’s conflict in the asking. Should we go here or there? Is the answer in the past, a sign we passed along the way, or is it

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Christopher Mark June 21, 2022

organic

What We Learned: The FACT-B Conference on Wine, Climate Change, and Biodiversity

One night, the soul of wine was singing in the flask: “O man, dear disinherited! to you I sing This song full of light and of brotherhood From my prison of glass with its scarlet wax seals. … For I feel a boundless joy when I flow Down the throat of a man worn out by his labor; His warm

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Christopher Mark May 25, 2022

wine business

3 Things I Learned About Wine Marketing from Kevin Zraly

There have been a couple of excellent pieces on the famous wine educator Kevin Zraly. Zraly played a critical role in the world-famous World Trade Center restaurant “Windows on the World”, and he has had as big an impact on wine education around the world as anyone alive. Last week I shared Eric Asimov’s excellent article on Zraly, and Mike

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Christopher Mark May 13, 2022

sustainability

Have We Lost the Plot with Sustainability?

I recently re-read a favourite essay of mine by the author Paul Kingsnorth. (I’d also highly recommend his and enthralling novel The Wake, written in an ‘updated’ Old English. It’s a wonderful novel to read aloud). The title is of course controversial. But Paul isn’t anti-environment, he has instead become anti-environment movement. This is, after all, a man who taught

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Christopher Mark February 8, 2022

drones

The Challenge of Precision Viticulture

The American Society for Eonology and Viticulture put out a great piece on the challenges for implementing precision viticulture. “Precision viticulture” (PV) is the use of technology or techniques that increase grape yield or quality while reducing environmental impact. It’s new cm-accurate GPSs, UAVs, moisture sensors, etc. This new technology means we no longer must treat vineyards as a homogenous block.

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Christopher Mark July 5, 2021

New Research on Plant Tissue Sampling

There are problems with plant tissue sampling. The big issue: nutrient concentration is not consistent across the petiole, is not consistent between nodes, and is not consistent between cultivars. For example, the middle segment of petioles consistently had the lowest segment of nutrients – other than manganese which had the highest. Perhaps because of the role manganese plays in photosynthesis?

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Christopher Mark May 19, 2021