Organic Vineyard- Swan Valley WA
Organic Vineyard - Free Range Vines
The wines at Harris Organic are fashioned by hand - from the first budburst of Spring to the final pruning in grey winter, the organic vineyard (where beautiful wine begins) is carefully tended by Duncan.
Because the Harris Organic vineyard is managed using organic principles of viticulture, no pesticides or herbicidal chemicals are used on or around the vines, nor are the vines artificially fertilised.
The vines are strip dug with a "silly plough" each spring to turn over the nitrogen-rich winter growth a hard job with Duncan on the sweaty end.
Everything is done by hand at Harris Organic; from pruning to most importantly, the picking of the fruit in late summer; this means there are no machine battered vines or wines at Harris Organic wines – you could say that we are happy producers of “free range” wines.
All the rows are 210 metres long and are 3.0 metres apart. There are, by luck, 100 vines per row.
This is not quite as difficult as it sounds, as Harris Organic is sited on 7 acres, 5 of which are under vine – but it is plenty of work for our small team.
Chemicals are not used in this vineyard. Chemicals that are available for use in Australian non organic vineyards are listed here. (pdf reader required). Bordeaux mixture and the occasion sulphur spray are used to combat any fungal outbreaks.