Flaherty Wines

We’ve done a lot of work in our little Tempranillo vineyard this year. In addition to radically changing our pruning system, we brought in a team to plow the soil in preparation for the growing season. This being rural Chile, the team involved a horse. I’m not sure how you would even do this in California–the vineyard is too small to merit bringing in a tractor, and for that matter there isn’t access for one if you did want to bring it in. When I had my vegetable garden plowed a few years ago, there was one man driving the horse with long reins, as I’d expected. This time, there was one man operating the plow and a second guy riding the horse, thus:

This allowed them to be very precise in their work. I was quite impressed to find that not one of my garden plants got trampled (which was not the case with my vegetable garden). They didn’t plow down the middle of the row, but rather right next to the vines on both sides of the plant, leaving an unplowed strip down the middle of the row. The goal here was to pile up the dirt around the plants, thereby deepening the root zone.

They also spread out fertilizer beforehand, which was then turned over into the soil during the plowing. Here’s a close-up of the old-fashioned plow, followed by a pose from the handsome boy who did the heavy pulling (and most likely provided the fertilizer). Note the cord tied to the horse’s foreleg–he was hobbled while waiting for the work to begin.