Wijngaard Saalhof

Nick Hoogland and Siem Loos (Wijngard Saalhof) from netherlands showed the first presentation in the afternoon about their project..

Download the Film (wmv-Format, 121 Mb)

his ppt presentation...

Short presentation about vineyard Saalhof

Siem and Ada Loos started vineyard Saalhof four years ago at the current location. Before that they had a 15 year history of making wine at their old vineyard in the neighbouring village. It was at a small scale and it was more of a hobby than a real job. The main source of income that time was de paint company they ran. But when the saalhof estate came for sale they decided to buy the estate en start a large scale vineyard. At that time I was hired to clean up the old barns en together with Siem and Ada we started to build the vineyard. The old vineyard witch contains 1 acre of Rondo is still in use today. But because of the old style of growing the vine plants of the old vineyard will be cleared next year.

The history of the Saal estate goes back to the 1500’eds when the governor of Holland bought the land. From that time on it’s owned by the Saal family. Up till 2004 when Siem and Ada bought the property. In the early 1900’eds the farm became a fruit farm and grapes became the most important form of income for the Saal family. But with the last members of the Saal family the company failed to be successful. Also the switch from traditional farming to biological farming couldn’t prevent the farm from bankruptcy. And because of the bad shape the farm was in, we had to nock down most of the old buildings, which included 6 100 year old greenhouses. The greenhouses were state of the art for that period of time, by means of an ingenious heating system they could warm up the greenhouses one by one. That way they had fresh grapes till December. The only buildings remained from the 1900’eds are the water tower and the education centre. Also the old farmhouse is in the early 30’ies replaced by the current manor.

Vineyard Saalhof today contains about 4 acres of vine plants. We started with one acre of mixed species, containing Solaris, Rondo, Pinot Noir and Johanniter. But last year we planted about 1.5 acre of johanniter only. And with the stigs of antes more than 98% came out. Our soil proved to be perfect for growing Johanniter vine plants. Without any problems we can harvest them with good sugar-contents considering that not all of our summers al long. This year it was the perfect vine growing year in our part of Holland. Especially the Johanniter grapes were perfect for making our best white since we started the vineyard.

The trimming we do is according to the German Guyot system. That way we can let the light in to the rows. This system proved to be the best system for our soil. The main sprig grows over the upper wire towards the ground. That way we can slow down the growth of the runners. Because of our soil the plants and especially the Johanniter grow very fast. In that way we must keep a distance of about 2.2m between the rows to get a sufficient amount of sunlight on the leaves. Our foliage has to be at least 2m high to absorb the sunlight. This system gives us the highest output, on each main sprig we grow now a maximum of 7 runners. Witch gives us a output of 10 clusters per plant.

It was also the first year that we applied thinning of the grapes. Many years of growing grapes in our region proved that it’s impossible to grow more than 2 clusters at one runner. So that’s why we tried to grow not more than two clusters at one runner. And it proved to be a success, within the growing season we were able to let the sugar-content run up to 82 without any trace of rotten fruit.

On our days of harvest we get a lot of help from volunteers. Each year we have a waiting list with people who want to be part of the wine process. And as the tradition requires the volunteers get a big diner in the afternoon. Working with volunteers is necessary because we don’t have professional employees in our country to do the job.

To prevent the fruit from rotting and other diseases we work close together with our neighbouring cherry grower for the latest products concerning protection of our crops. On his advice we use different kinds of biological plant protection products. This year we tried a biological nutrition from Hungary. It’s sprayed directly on the leaves. It contains import nutritious ingredients as copper, zinc, magnesium, iron and 60 extracts from different kinds of vegetables. To know exactly the right amount of nutrition we have to give to the plants we do a soil investigation between each year.

But because of the thinning of the fruit we can’t harvest ton’s of grapes at one acre. But are goal is to make a good cold climate wine. The vineyard also proved to be a major tourist attraction. That’s why we also build a bed and breakfast in the owner’s house. We build 5 solid Russian log houses in witch we can accommodate up to 20 people. And this year we will complete our restaurant and education centre in which we can educate groups up to 50 people. The vineyard also proved to be a great place to marry, and the first big orchestra has played on our property.

Wine tasting is also an important part of our tour, it’s the moment we can let people taste the quality of cold climate wines. That’s we don’t have any traditional wines for tasting. And in the end it’s all about making a good cold climate wine. The side activities are necessary to give us a chance to make the best wine possible in a cold climate wine area. And the only way to do that is to try. For next year we are looking for a good red grape the we can use next to our current Rondo grape. Because making a good red wine is the biggest challenge. Our aim in the next few years is to making good wines with and eco quality mark. And we think that creating a cold climate wine region is the best way to sell our wines to the world.