Wine & Spirits - April 2021 - 35

wild areas, forested tracts, animal habitats and her family
home. Casteel has an M.S. in Forest Biology from Oregon
State, so she was familiar Simard's work, as well as Schreiner's, and knew of the importance of mycorrhizae-she
believed those networks would ultimately play a role in her
wines' flavors. " So much of the life of this ground had been
taken away, " she says. " What had grown here, the trees, the
plants, all of this had been removed. I wanted to know what
this place could actually taste like. "

NE HUNDRED MILES AWAY, in the
Columbia Gorge, Nate Ready and
China Tresemer purchased their
property in 2010. An organic farm,
it included orchards and a 14-acre
vineyard. They renamed it Hiyu
Wine Farm (Hiyu is a Chinook
word meaning " big party " ) and
converted the property-some 30 acres-to permaculture,
with the goal of creating a sustainable closed-loop in which
the land provides what the farm needs.
They intended to graft over the vines-mostly planted
to pinot noir and pinot gris-to some sort of field blend.
But when Ready inquired about cuttings at Davis, he was
surprised to learn how many were available to him; he went
on to plant a huge varietal array. " How could I not? " he
says. " It was crazy to me no one had tried this. " In all, they
grafted 112 varieties on the property, mixed rows in mostly
half-acre blocks, with varieties planted together based on
whim, on curiosity, on regional or historic affinities or on
hunches as to what would work well.
The Hypericum block, for example, is composed of
a cross-section of Mediterranean varieties that Ready

assumed were exchanged in ancient times between southern Italy and Greece-so assyrtiko and roditis are interplanted with fiano, greco di Tufo and verdicchio. They did
the same with the orchard, regrafting over 50 different fruit
and nut varieties onto pear and apple trees.
After Ready reseeded cover crops, built up an animal
population, and inoculated with a mycorrhizal population
(such preps are now available as commercial inputs), he
finds the property is increasingly self-sufficient. All of his
vineyards are no till; Ready tosses seeds in the spring, sometimes behind where his pigs are rooting, between rows; he
prunes minimally, does no hedging or leaf-pulling and
doesn't drop fruit.

O LOOK FOR SIGNS of a healthy mycorrhizal network in a no-till vineyard is to rely on evidence
of things not seen, starting with the soil, which,
in a no-till block, is entirely out of sight. (Just to
turn a spade would be a disruptive act.) But one
reliable clue is that, comparatively, these vineyards are a mess.
Cover crops often stand two to five feet high,
unmown and untended. Canopies are relatively unkempt,
in part to contend with the cover crop as the vines seek out
sunshine. Insects and birds abound, attracted by flowering
plants. Animals roam freely-sheep, goats, llamas, chickens, ducks, guinea hens, geese, even cows, are common in
the vine rows, their droppings, ubiquitous. They feed on
grasses, on plant litter, on insects and on other animals
(Ready thinks his pigs help with the mole and vole population in his vineyards). At Hiyu, cows have been known to
poke their heads through open windows at the kitchen,
greeting guests during meals and tastings.
WINE & SPIRITS

" In the same
way that we're
creating conditions where
life forms will
thrive, we're
creating conditions where
unique wines
can be made. "
-NATE READY, HIYU
WINE FARM

APRIL 2021

Wine & Spirits - April 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - April 2021