"Sakura" season - the start of Spring is signalled by the advent of the first cherry blossom flowers in Japan. It is a major event and extremely popular in Japan - almost like Beaujolais Nouveau used to be with the race to be the first one to land the new wine!

Having successfully completed the bottling in March and leaving the vineyard in the capable hands of Bruno (consultant), Frédéric (tractorist) & Abdel El-Anzouki (vineyard), I headed off back to Japan to rejoin Patrick and have some well earned R&R! Arriving literally in the midst of the "Sakura" season meant that there were lots of people walking around admiring any cherry tree in the area. I naturally had to partake of this activity having missed out on the previous two years here. My friends had organised a couple of "hanami" or pic-nics and Patrick had arranged to take me to Kyoto & Yoshino - both very famous and popular destinations for cherry blossom viewing.

Not wanting to leave Combebelle out of the picture here - we too have the odd cherry tree which blossomed on my return in May!

The weather in April was colder & wetter than usual with the result that the vine is a little behind in development. However, this in turn allowed us to clean up a lot more in the vineyard as the soil was soft and weeds were easier to remove. El-Anzouki & his team attacked the plots where there were too many large weeds growing which if allowed to grow will reach 2m plus in height and be a nuisance when we pick the grapes. We also had to prepare the plot to be grafted in May. We are continuing our programme of changing the vineyard and this year have decided on grafting 2.5ha of Cabernet Sauvignon with Grenache Noir and Cinsault. Before we can do this, we have to prune off the previous years' growth and remove the bark from the trunk. With 11000 vines to do this is quite a big job! We decided to bring in another company to help with this as we had to keep up to date with the rest of the vineyard work. They would also look after the grafted vines and remove the shoots as they sprouted to make sure the vine focused on the new graft rather than trying to generate new growth from the existing vine.

Frédéric had a lot of work to do in the vineyard ploughing in between the rows and in between the vines to aerate the soil and remove excess grass / ground cover which might compete with the vine later on in the growing season.

We also lower the trellis wiring at this point so that the vine has room to grow and when it is time to start tucking the first growth in, we are not having to pull at the young tendrils clinging to the wire and manipulating them into the trellis system. Once we reach the end of May / beginning of June, we will be tucking in and tidying up the trellis system to ensure that there is enough sunlight on the developing grape bunches and the required treatments actually penetrate the canopy and protect the bunches from disease.

As usual, during my absence from the vineyard, there are the odd problems or issues that crop up & thankfully mobile technology worked enough for me to arrange for several orders to be prepared and shipped which is a challenge when managing from afar! However, this was the first time I had been away knowing that most things would get done and whatever problem that might arise, would be resolved quickly & efficiently. It is only now that I can say we have a great team of people working for us who are dedicated to making Combebelle great! Thank you all for making this happen!