Out of season rural vineyard and crumbling farm house, Vinho Verde wine region, north Portugal, Europe.
Vinho Verde is a Portuguese wine from the Minho region in the far north of the country. The name literally means "Green Wine" (red or white), referring to its youthful freshness rather than its color. The region is characterized by its many small growers, which numbered more than 30,000 as of 2005. Many of these growers train their vines high off the ground, up trees, fences, and even telephone poles so that they can cultivate vegetable crops below the vines that their families may use as a food source. Most countries limit the use of the term Vinho Verde to only those wines that come from the Minho region in Portugal. Viticulture (from the Latin word for vine) is the science, production and study of grapes which deals with the series of events that occur in the vineyard. When the grapes are used for winemaking, it is also known as viniculture. Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that treats farms as unified and individual organisms, emphasizing balancing the holistic development and interrelationship of the soil, plants, animals as a self-nourishing system without external inputs insofar as this is possible given the loss of nutrients due to the export of food. Regarded by some as the first modern ecological farming system and one of the most sustainable, biodynamic farming has much in common with other organic approaches, such as emphasizing the use of manures and composts and excluding of the use of artificial chemicals on soil and plants. Methods unique to the biodynamic approach include the use of fermented herbal and mineral preparations as compost additives and field sprays and the use of an astronomical sowing and planting calendar
Size: 5327px × 3551px
Location: Vinho Verde, Portugal, Europe
Photo credit: © Ellen Barone / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: autumn, crumbling, decayed, decaying, dilapidated, disintegrating, disrepair, eco-tourism, education, europe, fall, grapevines, neglected, portugal, ramshackle, ruined, run-, seedy, shabby, travel, vineyard
