LAMBING TIME IN THE HIGH SANDS VINES

Lambing time: When winter weeds tease too many Australian grapegrowers to spray Monsanto-Bayer's glyphosate-based Roundup everywhere, the Yangarra High Sands 1946 Grenache Vineyard out my back door needs no rounding-up until the leaves have gone, the vines are pruned and the first shoots of 2019 emerge, when it'll be time to herd the sheep and their babies back to ordinary pasture. 

No glyphosate required here! That's one brand new arrival with its mum, above.

Like last year, there are lots of twins. Here's a very fresh pair bothering their mum, while another poor ewe staggers about with a busting udder, ready to drop her bundle. 

While the autumn broke the dry records in much of South Australia, and we desperately need rain for the stock and the dams, there's still good green pasture in the sands. 

One fascinating aspect of this year is the time gap between harvest and leaf fall: many vines have held their leaf much longer than I've seen before, indicating that in spite of the big dry, they're in strapping health and balance, which bodes well for 2019. In the meantime, it's worth noting that the dry-grown bush vines have held leaf weeks longer than the trellised vines on drip, regardless of the sparsity of the watering the latter were afforded ... Yangarra is 100% certified biodynamic and organic ... photos Philip White