The „Gentle“ Winter Time in the vineyard

After a very exciting and stressful year in 2018, in the last few weeks a little peace has returned to the winery and in the vineyards. While the wines are aging undisturbed in the cellar, in the vineyard it becomes to the most important time of the year… the pruning.

Sunny (and icy) start of the day at Jungenberg.

Pruning is the first activity for the quality control and yield of the coming year. Therefore, it is necessary to work with a lot of concentration and calmness, even when the cold is a bit more difficult on some days.

We attended a small seminar of the famous “Simonit & Sirch” troupe, who discussed the topic of gentle pruning. This method is to help improve the health and longevity of the vine.

Here, we quickly graphed the principle by hand:

The aim is to cut as little old wood as possible around large wounds, to avoid mushrooms (eg. Esca) in the trunk. On the graph you can see that always one to maximum two-year-old wood is cut. In this way, the SAP flow in the vine is not disturbed and the vine remains healthy.

Ladisberg-left side is already pruned and the right side still has a lot more work to do

After the pruning, the next task in the vineyard is ready for us. We need to prepare the cut wood for next year, and then tie each pruned wine to the wires. Then we and our vineyards are ready for spring!