"Vineyard " Topic

Good job!

From here
link

He used it for Modern, but it's work well for the Penninsular War too.

Amicalement
Armand

Nice. And I need a couple of those for Marengo so may copy how he's made them. I visited northern Italy this summer and had a good look at how the vineyards looked and these really have the right look.

What a great and novel idea. If only Southern Belgium had such…………

Very nice!

Will work well for 1805 campaign as well.

Ref Rear guard action of the Russians and the famous vineyard (Battle ICRC) and then also at Austerlitz itself where the Russian guard cavalry charged and broke a French square at a vineyard.

MG

Nicely done

Nice work. Especially for 15mm miniatures they look the part on the tabletop. Wooden posts and some green for the vines. Similar to my vineyards for my napoleonics and FOW gaming in 20mm.

link

PS; the miniature are excellent too!

Happy you enjoyed it boys!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

As for use in earlier periods, I have read that the practice of growing vines in rows came after the Napoleonic era – does anybody know if this is true. Did Portuguese and Spanish vineyards look like this in the early 19thC?

They'll be perfect for "Wine Wars: Sonoma County Stomp"

I do hope Matthewgreen is wrong……..but he does sound convincing!

After seeing this whole thread I had just started to create……..

But then I filled Hougoumont Orchard with apple trees bearing apples…in June 1815. Then my Heavy Cavalry of La Garde ride through crops pale brown and ready for harvest….for same date.

I, for one, would love to know answer to question posed, absent cause (has anyone else watched that nonsense Spartacus?….nothing but naked women and battles……….who wants to watch that…….??…?

"The earliest evidence of grape vine cultivation and winemaking dates back 7,000 years.[2] The history of viticulture is closely related to the history of wine, with evidence that humans cultivated wild grapes to make wine as far back as the Neolithic period. Evidence suggests that some of the earliest domestication of Vitis vinifera occurred in the area of the modern countries Georgia and Armenia.[3] The oldest-known winery was discovered in the "Areni-1" cave in Vayots Dzor, Armenia. Dated to c. 4100 BC, the site contained a wine press, fermentation vats, jars, and cups.[4][5][6][7] Archaeologists also found V. vinifera seeds and vines. Commenting on the importance of the find, McGovern said, "The fact that winemaking was already so well developed in 4000 BC suggests that the technology probably goes back much earlier."[7][8] There is also evidence of grape domestication in the Near East in the early Bronze Age, around 3200 BC.

Evidence of ancient viticulture is provided by cuneiform sources (ancient writing on clay tablets), plant remains, historical geography, and archaeological excavations.[9] The remnants of ancient wine jars have been used to determine the culture of wine consumption and cultivated grape species.[10] In addition to winemaking, grapes have been grown for the production of raisins.[11]
The earliest act of cultivation appears to have been the favoring of hermaphroditic members of the Vitis vinifera species over the barren male vines and the female vines, which were dependent on a nearby male for pollination. With the ability to pollinate itself, over time the hermaphroditic vines were able to sire offspring that were consistently hermaphroditic.[12]
At the end of the 5th century BC, the Greek historian Thucydides wrote:

" The people of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learnt to cultivate the olive and the vine."

The period that Thucydides was most likely referencing was the time between 3000 BC and 2000 BC, when viticulture emerged in force in Asia Minor, Greece, and the Cyclades Islands of the Aegean Sea. During this period, grape cultivation developed from an aspect of local consumption to an important component of international economies and trade…"

"The earliest evidence of wine production dates from between 6000 and 5000 BC.[1] Wine making technology improved considerably with the ancient Greeks but it wasn't until the end of the Roman Empire that cultivation techniques as we know them were common throughout Europe.[2]
In medieval Europe the Church was a staunch supporter of wine, which was necessary for the celebration of the Mass. During the lengthy instability of the Middle Ages, the monasteries maintained and developed viticultural practices, having the resources, security, stability and interest in improving the quality of their vines. They owned and tended the best vineyards in Europe and vinum theologium was considered superior to all others.

European vineyards were planted with a wide variety of the Vitis vinifera grape. However, in the late 19th century, the entire species was nearly destroyed by the plant louse phylloxera accidentally introduced to Europe from North America. Native American grapevines include varieties such as Vitis labrusca, which is resistant to the bug. Vitis vinifera varieties were saved by being grafted onto the rootstock of native American varieties, although there is still no remedy for phylloxera, which remains a danger to any vineyard not planted with grafted rootstock…."
From Wiki.

Amicalement
Armand

What one must remember is that there was no inexpensive and rust-proof wire available for agriculture until later in the 19th century. Hence it is of limited value to examine modern vineyards, because the trellis wire systems that most such use today were not possible in the blackpowder/ medieval/ ancient world. As a former winemaker myself I am very interested in this subject and have tried to research it – there is, for example, a very complete set of small vineyards in Pompeii which show various vine-training methods available to the ancients. However, the specifics of agricultural techniques of a particular region do not often survive or do not seem to be of as much interest to archaeologists as I would like – and of course most modern viniculturists know nothing of how things were done before their father's time!

Basically, you could run vines up trees, along wooden rails (an overhead trellis system was popular), or train each vine up its own individual stake (the modern French equivalent is the Gobelet system still widely used from Beaujolais southwards and in many places in the Mediterranean world). Other trellis or training systems could also be employed, but the wire rows that make walking across (as opposed to down) modern vineyards so fatiguing (you constantly have to duck underneath) would not exist.

The OT's lovely terrain piece is quite plausible as a waist-high or higher wooden rail trellis. Such a system, rather labor intensive, would be typical I should think of smaller family vineyards rather than large latifundia-type operations.

Very nice but I wish they would have sanded down (beveled) the edges of the craft sticks. Harsh edges like that always sit wrong with me when I look at terrain pieces like that. The raised, flat edge is too harsh.