THE long dry spell just ended meant sleepless nights for the vine cultivators of Cappoquin. It brought sudden night frosts that tripped the vine yard's thermo static alarms.
To save the delicate premature leaf buds from damage, the guardians of the vineyard had to leave their beds in the early hours and light the smudge pots, which sent clouds of protective moist smoke over the vine rows.
The time honoured technique worked, and the 1997 vintage a dry, spicy, Pinot Noir style wine should be on time and of good quality.
Here, in the Blackwater Valley, sheltered by the Knockmealdown Mountains, a serious wine making enterprise of modest scale is looking forward to its sixth grape harvest this autumn.
Pat McGrath, a Donegal woman, is the vigneronne, the wine grower. Her enthusiasm and obvious depth of technical knowledge at once dispel the visitor's inclination to view with scepticism an Irish wine making enterprise.
She points out that the Cappoquin area of west Waterford has all the necessary characteristics for nurturing cool climate vines, a type which is grown extensively in northern France. The limestone bedrock is ideal. "The Knockmealdowns are a marvellous shelter belt for us, and we're close enough to the coast to get the benefit of the Gulf Stream."
Pat McGrath came to the highly skilled art of vine cultivation as a relative neophyte, although she had made "country wines" from the fruits of the hedgerow after she and her husband, Dave, returned from England 17 years ago and bought their present cottage and small holding near his native, Dungarvan.
Now they have 2,000 vines" slowly maturing in neat rows on IV2 acres behind the cottage. Their main grape variety is Schoenburger, the fruit of a "designer vine" created in 1970. It is made up of an American native vine with a German vine grafted on top and, as a, temperate climate vine, it suits average Irish summer temperatures.
In fact the summer of 1995, when temperatures got up to 35 Celsius, was if anything too hot for these vines, Pat says. Like all professional vine growers, she has become obsessive about climate variations and keeps temperature records. The recent "freak" dry spell brought the vine buds on too early, and night frosts of as much as 4.5 Celsius had to be coped with.
"The vines themselves can take temperatures as low as 20", the Cappoquin vigneronne points out. "But it's the weak little shoots that are vulnerable." Frost would not wipe out the grape growth, but would make the harvest much later.
The smudge pots, open ended tar barrels in which hales of hay are burned to produce a protective smoke cloud, were very effective in keeping frostbite at bay in the vines, but meant the McGraths had to spend many chilly nights on alert.
Harvest time is normally mid-October. It is a time of hectic activity. "We get in about 15 pickers to pick the grapes," she explains. "They have to be picked and pressed within a couple of hours, or oxidisation will set in."
With no local tradition of wine making, Pat and Dave McGrath had to start from scratch. She consulted textbooks to learn how to plant the vine yard in 1989. "We have no history to fall back on. We've no one to ask, basically."
But now she has become expert in this specialised cultivation field and has attended master classes in England on vineyard care. The McGraths' vineyard has been praised by the vineyard master and cellar master of Mumm Champagne, who visited while attending a conference.
They were among the hundreds of visitors who call to the vine yard throughout the season to see the unusual crop, taste the wines and buy a bottle or a case. The McGraths run a strictly farmgate" commercial enterprise, selling only to personal callers or in response to direct individual orders.
They have a thriving, spin off enterprise in recycling bottles. Regular callers or purchasers bring their "empties", which are sterilised and re-used. Pat has also branched into making wine vinegar.
As the vineyard matures it will not be fully mature until around 2000 the potential for producing wine of the highest calibre will increase. Already the McGraths' 1992 premium vintage is a coveted collectors' item, gaining accolades from expert tasters.
The 1995 vintage was relatively high in tannins, and needs a couple of years' cellaring the 1996 was "lovely", it is said. The Co Waterford vineyard, which they call "Fionghort, Phort Lairge", produces only white wine, of course the intense heat and prolonged sunshine needed for red is simply not available.
But the McGraths have exploded preconceived notions and broken new ground by developing an innovative small scale agricultural enterprise, of proven quality, which provides a living for themselves and their twos small sons, offers seasonal employment locally and gives huge enjoyment to their hundreds of patrons.
They have also become quite a magnet for tourists in the region, adding to the county's other tourist attractions. They have had phone calls and letters from around the world, and occasionally even coach loads of curious visitors arrive at the vineyard just off the N72 Cappoquin Dungarvan road.
IRONICALLY, if predictably, they have had no practical State support or encouragement for their initiative. They don't covet the grants and subsidies made available to their farmer neighbours, but they would like to be on a level playing pitch with European wine producers in regard to excise duty.
The odds are stacked against them by the level of Irish duty on wine, the highest in Europe. The McGraths pay well over £2 duty, plus VAT, on a litre bottle of their wine, which they sell for around £5. In Britain the equivalent duty is £1.70 in France about 3p, and in Germany and Italy nil.
Pat McGrath, who has written to the Finance Minister Ruairi Quinn, many times on this matter, suggests that the Single European Act was supposed to lead to rationalisation of tariffs and duties.
She feels small producers, those producing under 10 000 litres, say, should be allocated a duty free allowance, or threshold, before paying duty.
But against all the odds the McGraths are holding on until their vineyard becomes more mature and will yield more high quality wines which will command higher prices.
They clearly enjoy the challenge of dumbfounding the pundits (not to mention the French) by proving that Ireland can produce a superb white wine.
Their favourite present was a photocopy sent to them of an item in the Dublin Penny Journal of December 1st, 1832, which suggested that small holders in the fertile Blackwater Valley could increase their income substantially by planting vines.
If that advice had been followed, Ireland might have become the only wine producer in Europe, Pat McGrath points out, because the phylloxera louse wiped out the European vine yards about the time of the Famine.
The wine making business remains highly vulnerable to the vagaries of climate and various vine pests. "The French say you have to be mad or drunk to go into this business," laughs Pat.
But the McGrath family, who were on the point of emigrating to Canada before they chanced on their present small holding, now love tending their vineyard. "I don't think we'd do anything else," Pat says.