Making new plants

After phylloxera (1955-1960), harvesters in Greece, when they planted new plants they were using phylloxera-resistant American wild plants. A practice followed by many until today. We create new plants by our-selves, risking a catastrophe of our vineyards. We choose rods of very good grapes and put them on the sand upside down to make roots. In May we will meet again when they are ready for planting. This is the process that was followed before the phylloxera in areas that were relatively dry. In areas that had potentials for watering, the wine growers planted the rods into the soil immediately without having roots.

We tie the vines in bundles.

We burry them upside down in the soil.

We water the dirt so to compress it.

We cover them with sand so they can make roots.

We cover them with manure to keep them warm.

We put nylon above them to keep them warm.

First ploughing

We did the first spring ploughing a little earlier than we used to, because it seems the moon of April will be relatively moist and it will be good for the soil to absorb as much water as possible. We have nothing to  complain of this year, the snows of winter had not missed. Much more moisture compared to last year.

Xristos Giannakis ploughing

Ploughed field at Aslanis

 

Pruning

Since mid-January to mid-February you can prune without consulting the moon. The harvesters in Greece say so. But this year the winter was heavy, so pruning went back almost a month. But it does not matter. Our vineyards contain 4000 plants per hectare. On each plant we left 6 eyes so that it can give us  proper grapes to a dry and hot summer.
 

Merlot

Giannis Giannakis prunes merlot

Muschat