Cover Crops in the Vineyard

As wine consumers, if we at all think about how the wine was made, we may think of grapes and grapevines and may even think of the farming aspect of growing grapes. While we mostly talk about the wine in our mouths, we should really give some thought to the farming.



Spring is barely here, yet we see growth in the vineyards. Not grapevine growth yet, but rather cover crops. Why do we need cover crops?

As children, we all heard of rotation farming. Some vegetations will add nutrients to the soil, some vegetations will take nutrients away. We can't rotate grape vines every year, which take nutrients away, but we can put in cover crops to add nutrients. What you see in the photo above are peas growing in between rows of our old Zinfandel vines. These peas will add nitrogen to the soils. It's a natural way to provide fertilizer to the vineyard. So now when you are having that wonderful glass of Andis Old Vine Zinfandel, you can be reassured that we have been sustainable in our farming methods. Enjoy!
 

Watch a short video of our wine maker, Mark Fowler discuss cover crops in the vineyard - COVER CROP VIDEO