Winter pruning in the vineyard

Pruning in winter while the vines are fully dormant, before the buds appear is essential to keep them manageable and more productive with a balanced yield come harvest time. You can also keep an eye on any possible imperfections and the risk of infection is minimised. In short, you are cutting off last season’s growth by 90% and leaving two strong canes for this year’s good healthy fruit.

When staring down at what seems like endless rows of vines, it feels like a daunting prospect but once you’re up and running it’s a straightforward and simple process. It’s the weather at this time of year that can get the better of you! But Jonathan, our vineyard manager, loves it as you get a real sense of what has happened in the vineyard for last year’s vintage and what potential is in the vineyard for the coming vintage.

The viticultural year starts with winter pruning. The approach that we take is determined by our respect for the terroir (a combination of factors including soil, climate and environment) and in turn this will dictate the style and quality of our fruit. The pruning system that we use is Double Guyot (‘geeoo’) system. The main aims of the system are to keep disease low and to help the fruit ripen evenly across a whole variety block. Essentially, balanced vines should ensure balanced wines.

We started our pruning early February and aim to have all the vines done over the course of the four Fridays with the support of our crack team of volunteers. It was a bitterly cold morning when we set foot in the vineyard on the first Friday, but the weather cleared by the afternoon and it felt good to have all nine rows of Bacchus completed.

Armed with gloves, protective glasses and a sharp pair of shears, we assess each vine and decide which of its canes we are going to keep and which to remove. We are looking for three canes to keep, those that are closest to the head of the trunk, about a pencil thickness and reaching the top wire. Two canes are laid down left and right, these are fruiting canes, and one is cut down to two buds for the following year’s growth, the lowest out of the three. Ideally these canes are a fists distance below the fruiting wire, allowing us to tie down the cane at 90 degrees along the wire (which we will be doing in March - see our volunteering page). We need over seven kilometres of fruiting canes over the whole vineyard.

All the discarded wood is then turned to mulch and ploughed back into the land to keep up the right balance of nutrients. Every vine is different and we aim to do a vine a minute. Sounds like a big responsibility doesn’t it? But really, it’s straightforward once you get into the rhythm. All our volunteers are given guidance from the start and many already come with a lot of knowledge. There is a great sense of achievement being part of such a crucial phase in the vine cycle.

Now, roll on the spring, I say!