Passing Clouds

by Graeme Leith

  It began to rain seriously, and wouldn’t stop. Greg and I ground our teeth in frustration, and it didn’t stop. We went away for days on end, and it didn’t stop.

  As the weather began to warm, the vines, packed with sawdust inside large plastic bags sitting in very large cardboard boxes, were sprouting roots. Meanwhile the whole cabernet vineyard was a sea of jelly-like mud that wobbled to and fro if we tried to drive a tractor up it. Reluctantly, we planted the vines in the mud after the rain had ceased for a few days, but it was hard going and the little soldered knobs were invaluable.

  Virtually nothing had been done to the house; we devoted our all to the garden and vineyard. We had somewhere to sleep, eat, sit and talk, then on our return to Melbourne we could have a luxurious hot shower. With summer almost upon us, and the weeds sprouting along the vine rows, it was essential to terminate their existence before they stole the soil’s valuable moisture. Not wanting to use herbicide near our precious vines, I was out there from morning until night with a shovel, chipping weeds out in the sun, happy as a sand boy (and doing my skin damage which still appears to irritate me to this day). Before I had chipped the whole 5 miles of vine rows, it had rained again and regenerated the grass, so I had to do it all over again—like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge but not as much fun.

  We decided we had to mechanise, so we borrowed a ‘silly plough’ from the Reimers. It was supposed to be a horse-drawn implement with two handles which allowed the blade on the ground to be manipulated to dodge in and out around the vines, ideally digging slightly into the soil and then turning the grass over, roots and all.

  There was a snap-lock mechanism on the towing cable attached to the horse or, in our case, tractor, so that if something immovable (like a post or a large vine) was hooked by the plough blade, it would release with a sudden snap like an oversized rat trap going off. Occasionally, if the grass had been allowed to grow long and the vine had a bend near ground level invisible to the operator, then the thing could hook up, but generally it was surprisingly efficient and, after the second plantings were completed in 1975, it was possible to ‘silly plough’ the whole vineyard in a couple of days, with a few days more for cleaning up with a shovel. By the time the whole vineyard was completely planted, there were 7 miles (or 11 kilometres) of row, which is exactly the distance between Inglewood and Kingower. This meant going up one side of the row and back down the other, therefore double the distance.

  At walking pace you could do it in a theoretical time of one day but, with other complications, turning around, swearing at or resetting the snap-lock and so on, two days was a good rate of progress. At one stage Sue had decided to complete her librarian qualifications, and would be driving the tractor while her mind was elsewhere, learning by rote as she recited things to herself. This sometimes meant she didn’t hear the exhaust note change as the silly plough got hooked behind something it shouldn’t have, sometimes not hearing the snap of the lock on the plough or the curses of the operator, but would blissfully keep driving, reciting whatever it is that librarians learn, dragging the cable behind her, leaving the now supine silly plough and the agitated operator in her wake.

  Before that time had arrived, however, the remaining potential vineyard had to be cleared. Thus, after much work with chainsaw, chain and tractor, the local bulldozer man, Bob Raven, was called in to grub out the stumps and level the land, filling in the old diggers’ holes. Many of the felled trees became end posts for the trellises. The idea was to have intermediate posts of 4–5 inch treated pine alternated with steel posts. The trellis wire was stapled to the wooden posts and attached by wires to the metal ones, so that the wires could be tightened annually to prevent sagging. This was done by the addition of a Hayes strainer in every wire, a device like a fishing reel with a ratchet, operated with a special tool or handle.

  This work was all to be done after the vines had sprawled for a year or two. After all, the viticulturist who established Chateau Tahbilk had written in the mid-1800s: ‘In this country where drought occurs regularly each summer, it is important to let the vine spread for the first two years so that it gains maximum vigour, to train it up in its third year.’ Or words to that effect.

  The watering truck, now named Gunga Din, was put to use throughout the summer. The Furphy tank holds, for some reason, 160 gallons, and at half a gallon per vine could water about 320 vines. With a long enough hose I could water sixteen vines at every stop.

  Later, when we were living there, a man came down and introduced himself as the local agriculture inspector. He was a charming fellow, and we proudly showed him our vegetables, particularly some potatoes that were throwing out tiny tomato-like things above ground among the leaves. He explained that the tomato, the potato and the aubergine were all deadly night-shades, and that these vestigial fruits did sometimes naturally occur in potatoes. Then he said, ‘I’ve been watching you. I sometimes have my lunchtime sandwich in the car on the hill there and watch you watering. You’ve got a Furphy tank that holds 160 gallons.’ He continued with the mathematics and concluded, ‘At three minutes per vine, plus refilling the tank, isn’t that six weeks to water the vineyard? Summer will be over by then!’

  I replied, ‘The answer is simple, but mightn’t readily occur to a public servant—I work eighty hours a week!’

  We all laughed and he went on his way, but after that he would sometimes call in and have his sandwich with us.

  How easily things grew then

  In 1975 we had to think seriously about where we were going to live—Kingower, where there was so much work to do, or Melbourne. If Kingower, it would mean closing down the electrical contracting business, Sue leaving work in Melbourne, and ensuring that my children, Ondine and Sebastian, now aged eleven and nine, wouldn’t need me in Melbourne.

  At that time, their mother Vosje was still living with her partner Rod Parker in Steiglitz. I went to see them to ask if their relationship was secure and permanent, and to think about it for a week, for Sue and I were about to embark on a project that would keep us poor for many years to come.

  A week later we talked; their relationship was fine and enduring. So Sue and I put things in motion to clear the decks and go to Kingower to live, which we did the following year.

  In the meantime, the ‘Back to Kingower’ weekend was held in 1975 and was a lot of fun, with a procession of floats representing woodcutting, winemaking, eucalyptus distilling and, in our case, Kingower Pumpkin Power, our Suzuki jeep filled with children and huge pumpkins and squash we had grown. Ondine and Sebastian came up for it and had a great time with the neighbouring kids.

  We had replanted the vegetable garden for the coming summer crop, having taken off crops of peas and beans, silverbeet and spinach from the previous autumn and winter plantings. Our first spring plantings had been wonderfully productive, and we were as boring as new parents showing off a baby as we distributed some of our precious produce to friends in Melbourne.

  How easily things grew then, before the drought or climate change, or whatever it is. Our garden had been producing beautifully and I’d established another one on the other side of the house near the front shiraz paddock which, because of the soil type, the level beds and the trench irrigation set-up, only had to be watered once a week, provided the seedlings were mulched when young.

  We were giving away stacks of vegetables both locally and in Melbourne and were actually selling pumpkins to the organic fruit and vegetable shop in Nicholson Street, North Carlton. When we moved to Kingower, many of the regular customers were upset, even annoyed, that they couldn’t get their ‘Sugra’ pumpkins, as Shirley Hudson described them in the shop. They were very good, due to the limited irrigation and the good soil, no doubt. They had firm flesh but intense flavour and of course great colour.

  So 1975 came and went. I think that might have been the year Phil Leamon made his first wine from Big Hill at Bendigo, and maybe Stuart Anderson’s first one from Maiden Gully. We, of course, had some years to go.<
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  The birth of Passing Clouds

  After Sue and I moved to Kingower in 1976, the rain slowly ceased—we would have prayed for rain, had we been praying people. But the bountiful wet years had gone and as we searched the skies for clouds the name ‘Passing Clouds’ was born—or, more accurately, borrowed.

  It began as a joke but ended up being serious. Sometimes when it looked as if a storm was building up, the clouds would bank up and approach Kingower from the north-west, then they would part and one lot would go to Wedderburn, 20 kilometres north, and the other lot to Derby near Marong, 25 kilometres south. It appeared that Melville’s Caves, a nearby large rock extrusion, was sending up a thermal, sufficiently strong to split the cloud. So that became the name of the vineyard, despite the fact there used to be a cigarette brand called ‘Passing Clouds’, made by WD & HO Wills—the very ones I had bought for Rob Hall for my twenty-first birthday party all those years ago in London. That’s what it had to be: Passing Clouds!

  Most of the winter of 1976 was spent trellising and training. The trellising had to be built and the vines trained up on a string to the wire, having first been pruned back to two buds on the little trunk, still not much bigger than, say, a little finger. A truckload of metal star posts was delivered and another one of treated pine posts. We were starting to spend serious money now, but what did that matter? We were going to make good wine. We could not know how good, but we were tantalised by the prospect of making something as good as or, we dared think, even better than Balgownie or Chateau Leamon. The Reimers’ Blanche Barkly vineyard was producing wine and it was a sensation. It was virtually next-door to our property, and some of their vines were planted on their ancestor’s original vineyard site.

  Friends and family sometimes came up to help us—Vicki’s brother Maurice, my brother Greg, and David Brown, who came once for a ‘health week’ (which it wasn’t). One day, while toiling with me in the vineyard, putting up end posts which weighed about 150 kilos each, aided by what he called ‘Mr Crow’s infernal invention’ (the crowbar), in 41-degree heat, David was moved to say, ‘I don’t mind work, but why does it have to be so bloody hard?’

  But we got it done, and the vision splendid began to appear as the vines, with our encouragement, crept up to the wire on the strings of baling twine. We then nipped out the two top buds with our fingers and trained two new buds along the wire, tying down where necessary. The vines were dormant until about September, when they woke in the warming soil and their roots commenced to grow and expand on last year’s hard-won territory. They were then reinvigorated and built tremendous pressure in the sap in the spring, enough to force the hardened, overwintered buds to swell and burst into leaf.

  So in late September we would observe the woolly bud stage turn to advanced woolly bud, then finally, budburst, as the tiny leaves unfurled and timorously entered their new world—one that can be unkind, for the risk of frost is omnipresent still, and can burn their tender foliage to a crisp.

  6

  Living life to the lees

  Acquiring ancient skills

  It is the viticulturist’s job to see the vines through what is going to be a perilous journey from the early, delicate stage to growing leaves and canes, as well as clusters of flowers that become bunches of grapes. They must be succoured through the rigours of the growing season—frost, hail and wind, searing heat and, often, drought. They must grow in good health and their carer must ensure that the twin evils of powdery and downy mildews do not strike them down. This would rob the vines of their hard-won crop, which the winemaker inherits from the viticulturist. If the fruit is good, the wine should be good.

  There are other diseases and pests encountered along the way, such as a soft little grub that sleeps all day, coiled like a watch spring in the loose soil at the base of the vine, to emerge at night and chew through the growing shoots until they fall as if cut—hence ‘cut worm’. I used to pay the kids five cents each for the ones they’d dig from the soil around the vine’s base and then put into a tobacco tin for later tallying and payment. There are snails, too, but these are never much of a problem at Kingower, it being so dry. Earwigs can be a problem, though, and also the light brown apple moth and the ubiquitous vine moth caterpillar. These did threaten us, but we were not prepared to spray any toxins on the vines. Elemental copper for downy mildew and sulphur for powdery mildew we considered okay, being naturally occurring substances. But never toxins—poisons—that would kill other beneficial creatures, such as wasps, bees and ladybirds that feed on the erinose or blister mite, and perhaps even our friends, the birds. Imagine poisoning wagtails, superb blue wrens or magpies!

  One doesn’t see many blue wrens in the established irrigated winegrowing areas, but at Passing Clouds, with the kitchen door open, two or three are often hopping around the floor. I’m not sure they get much to eat; I think they just like being there.

  So, for us, spraying toxins was clearly unthinkable; nature must find a balance. And it did, for the magpies cleaned up the vine moth caterpillars as they appeared. We noted that the vines in the vineyard had very few, and if a vine was identified as having even one, the giveaway being chewed leaves, then the caterpillar was allowed to continue its work, but a visit later in the day would invariably reveal the caterpillar gone.

  However, the vines around the house, where magpies did not patrol, were infested with caterpillars and they had to be constantly picked off by hand and put into the chook bucket. Later a spray product called Dipel was introduced. The caterpillar ingests a deadly bacteria that destroys its gut, killing it, but without rendering it poisonous to its predators.

  However, the biggest menace to the vines during those critical years was frost. The closer the vines are to the ground, the more vulnerable they are to frost because the coldest air collects at ground level, and is particularly damaging when, like water, it pools in hollows and depressions. It is surprising how many vineyards are planted in frost pockets, possibly because the moistest, most fertile parts of the vineyard are in those very places. The cold air will flow away to lower elevations if it is able to.

  There was much to impede the flow of cold air at our vineyard—the creek banks were a mass of felled trees piled up by the bulldozer or towed there with the Ferguson and chain, left to dry and become firewood. Moist, compact dark soil sloping to a lower run-off point is ideal; dry, grassy flats with an impeded run-off are not. That’s what we had, an impeded run-off, a tangle of dead trees on the edges of the dry creek bed.

  There are ways of combating frost. One is to create a local inversion layer of smoke by burning, or preferably smouldering, hay bales, or burning oil in smudge pots, now illegal in most places. This inversion layer is really a low airborne barrier of minute carbon particles, which prevents the coldest air from reaching the ground.

  There are wind machines available, too, and even helicopters are used by wealthy vignerons at times. This is to agitate the air and combine the warmer with the freezing so that the temperature stays above –1 or –2 degrees Celsius, at which point the vines become damaged. Water sprays can be used, the water freezing on the vines at 0 degrees, thus preventing cold air of a lower temperature contacting the leaves. But these things require money and huge amounts of water, neither of which we had.

  So we would burn fires all night when we expected a frost, going from one side of the vineyard to the other to tend them and keep the smoke and heat going. We would compare notes after dawn with the Reimers from Blanche Barkly—father Tom and sons David and Alvin—and it became a tradition to share a bottle of vintage port in the early morning light before going to bed.

  Later on we bought a dinky little frost alarm that sat out on the verandah and was connected with a wire to an alarm on the bedside table—when it rang, you got up!

  Later again, when I was living in Daylesford, my Kingower neighbour, Geoff Graham, who had a vineyard up the road and whose grapes we have used for many years, would ring when conditions were set up for a frost�
��that is, car windows frosting before midnight, clear sky, no wind. I’d answer the phone and Geoff would say, ‘Looks like she’s on, Leithy,’ and I would leave the warm marital bed and drive the 100 kilometres through the beautiful, starry, icy night to light and tend the hay bales. It happened less and less as the years went by and the slopes to the creek were made smoother and freer flowing. But it still happens; we consider Melbourne Cup Day as the end of the frost season, and that is when we plant our frost-tender tomatoes, capsicums and aubergines.

  Creative pursuits

  The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. After ten years of partnership, during which their daughter Abigail was born, Vosje and Rod parted company in 1975. Vosje returned to 453 Canning Street.

  Barely a year later, Vosje felt she could not look after the children. Abigail, aged six, went to live with her father in Steiglitz. Ondine, twelve, and Sebastian, ten, came to live with Sue and me at Kingower.

  This was a less than ideal situation, for they would have to live in a house without running hot water, not even a flushing toilet, and would have to be separated from their mother, their sister, their Melbourne friends and, in Ondine’s case, her beloved Princes Hill school. There would be no difficulty with them continuing their relationship with Rod, for he and I were friendly and would facilitate meetings, but there was always the tyranny of distance. In fact, we had become closer, for we shared a problem in common—Vosje—whose eccentricities were becoming less amusing as time went by. It was obvious that she had alcohol-related problems and, I later learned, Ondine had taken responsibilities that should not have been hers to bear.