Spring in the Vineyards: Time to Shape the New Vintage

Spring in the vineyards is oh, so beautiful. The vines are greening up as shoots and buds begin to grow. Robins hop in the rows, looking for worms and other goodies. The birds are singing. The air is soft.

With no irrigation needed, no grapes to harvest and composting already done, spring must be the season when winemakers can just sit back and relax, right? Wrong.

Spring is the time when everybody is working like Trojans and biting their nails. This is because vineyard success is really dependent upon several things that happen in this season.

SPRING IN THE VINEYARD

One of these is pruning those pretty green shoots you see peeking out of the vines. At this point, it’s called shoot-thinning (aka suckering). This takes skilled workers, because you are basically shaping the vine and fixing any errors in pruning. Timing of shoot-thinning is critical–if you do it too early, you may have to go back and do it again.

Timing is also critical during budbreak. If there is too much cold or too much heat, rain, or wind, buds can shatter and thereby wreck a good harvest. If budbreak is late, winemakers will face a late harvest, and this means grapes will be susceptible to heat spikes, fall rains, or both.

Then comes leaf pulling. With more heat in California vineyards, it is now customary to leave more leaves for shade, depending on the orientation of the vines to the sun, variety, etc. Like every other spring task in the vineyard, this is another time-consuming effort.

A final task is topping or hedging, when longer shoots are cut back so that all are uniform. Aside from prettifying the vineyard, this is beneficial vine growth and the grape harvest.

Even with all this work, there is no doubt that winemakers love spring. It is the moment of regeneration when the new vintage begins to express itself. Spring is birds singing, and sitting back to feel the sun on your face. It is BBQs after a long day nurturing the budding vines, dirt under your fingers and the thrill of harvest in the making.

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