The secret life of Pets. Why do winemakers give birth to dogs and horses in the vineyards

The secret life of Pets. Why do winemakers give birth to dogs and horses in the vineyards

In some vineyards is home of the most exotic creatures. For example, the vineyards of one of the most iconic farms in Argentine Patagonia carefully support the population of armadillos that are to say the winemakers, successfully cope with the larvae of dangerous insects.

Since the second half of the twentieth century biodynamic Ghost left to wander the world of wine, the desire to inhabit the vineyards are all sorts of animals never ceases to disturb the creative imagination of the winemakers. And motives that make oenologists to rely on our younger brothers, are the most different — from the karma-world to land treatment.

If traveling through champagne or Alsace, you will suddenly see the farmer walking behind plow horse between the rows of vines, I do not think that the owner of the vineyard went bankrupt. Not at all — the purchase and maintenance of thoroughbred Breton heavies cost comparable to the price of a light tractor. But the tractor, unlike the horse, fills the landscape of man-made noise, and the wheels pushing through the soil, again reducing the size and compromising its structure.

The horse, in addition to beneficial effects on the ecological environment through their delicate hooves and their own waste products, attracts and vineyards peaceful guests of the wine sector and tourists passing by.

However, the use of the horse or the ox yoked to the adherents of the organic wine does not stop. To control the spread of weeds between the rows, the owners of many of the vineyards here produce to feed their own or a neighbor’s sheep, or geese, for example… llamas.

In fact, any animal, prefer vegetable food, suitable for this purpose. Valuable organic fertilizer as manure or dung is considered as a bonus… However, the objective of growers is to calculate and to accurately correlate the growth of animals and the altitude at which it formed a canopy of vines. Otherwise, the diet of our volunteers will be replenished with fresh, juicy, crisp vine leaves and grapes will be left without their “solar panels”. Indispensable in this sense dwarf sheep or undersized new Zealand pigs kun-kun lately gaining popularity and increasing in number.

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