Markers of a Season

A different take on wines of place

We are all familiar with location-triggered memories. That bridge after Levin, where you discussed your sister’s new partner thirty years ago, comes to mind. Every time you drive over that bridge, the conversation lights up in your mind, whether you want it to or not. Memories and associations imprint not just within the vastness of our minds; they’re also scattered across the landscape. They exist in car parks, locker rooms, and lobbies, wherever we may have been. It’s like an exterior map of the human mind.

Smells, sounds, and words act as memory containers. You’ll have yours dotted around, and I hope they’re pleasurable and uplifting.

The vineyard operates similarly. Throughout the season, certain memories attach to the tasks at hand and the specific places where they are performed. Memories consist of what you’re thinking, what you’re listening to, the people who visit, and the discussions that take place. Every year, this happens. This time, I’ve decided to document it.

In 2020, my first year, everything was new. For whatever reason, Toots & the Maytals’ Beautiful Woman and The Stone Roses’ Love Spreads became intertwined with the task of pruning and stripping Row 17. Now, I can’t be in Row 17 without the urge to play these songs on the wireless speaker. (Toots Hibbert passed away in September 2020, and for a while, I felt partially responsible!)

Why should you or I care about such things? It can’t be claimed that our 2021 Pinot Noir has hints of Jamaican Reggae or Manchester Alt Rock. Can it? However, it can be said that what follows gives insight into the character of the winegrower, if not the wine itself, as it was being tended. Surely, there is relevance here.

That said, there are things that even a mother can’t be expected to care about. This list may well fall into that category. What follows are the dominant associations pegged to time and place in the vineyard for the 2025/26 season.

The season is close to its end now. Here’s to a vintage of quality, as in 60 days or so, memories turn to wine!

April 2025: Post-Harvest Reflections

The trauma of harvest is over. Grapes are becoming wine. And that is thrilling—winery aromas, emerging wine characteristics... The vineyard is bedding down in yellow, orange, and gold, eventually brown, to winter in peace. The quiet is sudden. It begs a question all winegrowers must ask at this time of year: Was it worth it? Can I muster the strength to do this again?

John Baker’s Stalin’s Wine Cellar (2021) tells a captivating story. Double Bay wine retailers luck into an option to buy the legendary wine collection of Uncle Joe, squirreled away in Georgia. They escape with no wine but alive and with such a story. You can feel Putin’s Sauronic evil emerging.

Jolie Holland’s Escondida (2004) and The Wine Dark Sea (2014) provide music that resonates deeply. The fact that JH is not a household name reflects poorly on us all.

June - August 2025: Winter Pruning

Cold days inch down rows, cutting, stripping, tying, and painting. It’s slow, passive work until you can work no more. Hands stiffen. Only a hot bath at the end of the day can bring core temperatures back up. The wood is in; hopefully, the fire is on.

A.A. Gill’s Far and Away: The Essential A.A. Gill (2020) is an audiobook narrated by Bill Nighy, with a foreword written and read by daughter Flora Gill. No one writes with such insight and decimating clarity. It’s a tonic and a privilege to listen to.

Bono’s Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story (2022), narrated by Bono, tells the oldest story in the book. It’s about parents, friends, and finding a way. The part on the band’s life with New Zealander the late Greg Carroll is beautiful.

Alexei Navalny’s Patriot (2024) is another audiobook. It’s a hard listen on gloomy days. It reveals the complete suppression and corruption of the human spirit by the Soviet, CIS, and Russian Federation, as told by this very decent, likeable, and courageous man.

September - October 2025: Spring Bud Break

The light returns. Frosts threaten new growth. Digging out undervine weeds by shovel, prepping wires, posts, and gear. Bud rubbing and initial shoot removal begin. Workdays blend into frost-watching through the night. Dawn skies are a reward. The game is afoot!

Steven Spurrier’s A Life in Wine (2022) is narrated by Richard Avery. It’s unabashed joy! Spurrier, known for the Judgement of Paris, lived a life that seems beyond history now. Caroline’s Great Aunt Claire remembered airships and swimming in crocodile-infested African rivers. This felt like that time. True adventure. We have crocodiles nearby too!

Elvis Costello’s Spike (1989) and Mighty Like a Rose (1991) remind me of how good Elvis is. His words and music, filled with acid and contempt for power and corruption, resonate deeply within the vineyard and the world beyond. The “bugs are taking over,” indeed.

November - December 2025: Early Summer Tasks

The game is on. Decisions and actions compound. Fall behind, and you will likely stay behind. Like a newborn home from mat care, the vineyard screams for attention day and night and cannot be ignored. One unfortunate move, and you’re in big trouble. Late frost, wind blowing shoots out of wires, heat stress. Be gentle with winegrowers at this time.

Oz Clarke’s Oz Clarke’s Story of Wine: 8000 Years, 100 Bottles (2023) is narrated by Oz Clarke himself. It’s Oz Clarke! His reading of Select Committee minutes would enthrall anyone. It’s a break glass and read/listen moment when feeling exhausted, dispirited, and beaten down by the cretins. Making wine feels important and necessary, serving a greater purpose, thanks to Oz. I am back in the long chain. Thank you, Oz.

Emma Kok’s Voilà, written by Barbara Pravi (2020) and performed with André Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra (2023), is a must-watch. Check out the YouTube clip and be floored. Your troubles are nothing. Your aspirations to success are inadequate! This is beauty. Struggle on. Do it! Rows 5-9, Home Fields Pinot Noir vineyard.

Rutger Bregner’s BBC Reith Lectures 2025 – Moral Revolution is a podcast. Four lectures that name and shame the decay wrought by the powerful. They offer a plain language response available to all to counter and reclaim our world. Rows 1-6, Chardonnay block.

January 2026: Mid to Late Summer Canopy Management

Trimming, weeding (by shovel), controlling rootstock (by shovel), plucking, and shoot positioning continue. Re-tucking windblown shoots, netting. Viticulturalists are huskless zombies by this time.

As of today, 2 February, the nets are on and clipped at our's and a neighbour’s vineyard. Three 12-hour days back-to-back should mark a pause until harvest, but it doesn’t. Repairing holes in nets will take about three weeks. Literally sowing sections of net together by hand, like our fishing ancestors did. It’s cruel.

Taking this analogy further, we’ve discussed key decisions in life, like starting a family or a wine brand, as unbusinesscaseable. No accountant or actuary would sign off on having children. It is economically irrational—a total cost sink. The same goes for vineyards and wine. Perhaps Steven Spurrier, Oz Clarke, and others will prove to be Sirens calling us to our ruin. But we would not be without our children or our wine life. Such memories. Voilà!

Brent

Feb 2026