In the Vineyards: The cycle of Soil, the flavors of Terroir

[Michael Chiarello Blog Feed]

We are always talking about the cycle of wine-making, but what about the cycle of wine-growing, or, the process of making the best fruit possible to create the best wine possible? I grew up in the Central Valley of California, surrounded by farms of all kinds, so I naturally gravitated toward the growing process when I decided to make wine. The result? I began Chiarello Family Vineyards after taking over a 90-year old, pre-prohibition vineyards and tending them back to health and happiness. Our first wines were the 1998 Felicia Old Vine Zinfandel and the 1998 Roux Old Vine Petite Sirah. (Link to CFV.com). From the first release, our wines have been consistently high rated, with scores in the low 90's, and we experience much less vintage variation than is typical of conventional vineyards. I attribute much of these successes to our organic practices. What's more, drinkers of our wine will not experience a “sulpher (sp?) hangover” more typical of white wines, European wines, and many other wines treated with a non-organic sulfites (SP).But what happens long before you pick the grapes? Here's a closer look.Right after harvest in the fall, we spread down a layer of compost between the rows (made from the stems, skins and seeds from our own grapes). Then we disc, and at the same time spread an organic seed mix of fech, oats, fava beans, and peas, with different grasses and wild mustard. These seeds grow into a lush cover crop over the winter and early spring. The cover crop does two things. First, in the winter it protects your topsoil, so that heavy rains don't wash it away. This is really important; it takes hundreds of years to make an inch of topsoil. Secondly, the grasses drink a lot of water from the soil, which is very wet in winter and early spring. And I want the soil to dry up in some wetter sections of the vineyard and these crops really do that. So you leave them in as long as possible. But then you mow till them into the soil, and they break down, creating vital nutrients, creating biological matter for the soil. Also as it breaks down, it adds to the humus layer. The humus layer is a kind of natural fertilizer, a living, breathing moisture-holding soil layer. To my mind, we are creating layers of flavor in the soil from which the layers of flavor in our wines are born. It's an awesome process, and always new and interesting.In spring, as soon as the soil gets dry enough for a tractor to pass through without getting stuck (usually two times pulling the tractor out of a mud bog), we mow and till in very small areas. We first mow the cover crop then immediately till it into soil before nutrients are lost. These two things have to be done within 24 hours of one another for maximum benefit to be captured from all our efforts at growing the cover crop. Just down the road from me, vineyards are farmed without cover crop or without ever being disced or tilled. That is amazing to me.

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[Food Network Fan]

I have never had fava beans. I would like to try them sometime.

[BerryBaby]

A bit buttery and shaped like a lima bean, only larger. I can eat Fava, but not lima.

[Food Network Fan]

Funny you would say they are buttery. I grew up with the lima bean called a "butter bean" I had never heard of a lima bean till I was grown. But apparently it's the same thing.

[Sukie]

I have never had fava beans either. I know I don't like lima beans
When my mom was a kid, her parents served lima beans in cream/milk. Just doesn't sound right!

[ibcheft]

Okay now I am really confused, I always thought lima bean, were different than butter beans, and there were regular lima beans and baby lima beans. I know when we had lima beans, they were a green and kinda flat shaped bean. Butter beans although the same shape were kinda butter colored, tasted different, and shaped similar but plumper. I looked up this fava bean and it looks nothing like a lima or butter bean that I know. Okay, now I am going to look up and see if I can find them in my visual food, or food companion and see what they have to say.

[Food Network Fan]

let me know if you find more info. I have lived most of my life knowing the butter bean but not the lima. I am always willing to learn if I am wrong that they are the same.

[BerryBaby]

They are not the same as lima beans. I so dislike lima beans. However, many places now serve fava beans that have been marinated and they are really good.
We'll wait for ibchef to do the research, but I think they are all different in taste and texture.

[Food Network Fan]

No not the fava bean, I know they are different. But I was told the lima bean is the same as a butter bean. That may or may not be true. I am finding conflicting info on the web.

[ibcheft]

Well according to the visual food, and food companion the lima bean is also a butter bean, but there are Fordhook, which is not a big baby lima bean. There are multiple varieties of the lima beans from Europe, which came from Peru over some 7000 years ago. Fava beans also known as a broad bean. So the lima bean is a butter bean, and if you have eaten broad beans they are the same as a fava bean. Still confused, so am I even after reading from these two sources, the stuff I found on the net still leaves it up in the air.