· By Tomas Arden · 1 min read
Pruning in the frost
Why the year in the vineyard starts in January, with a pair of secateurs and cold fingers, and how two buds a spur decide the harvest.
Every vine on the estate passes through somebody’s hands in January. There are a little over forty thousand of them, and it takes four of us six weeks.
Two buds a spur
We prune the old syrah to short spurs along the cordon, two buds each. Every bud left is a shoot in spring and a bunch or two in September, so pruning is where we decide how much wine the hill will make. Fewer buds, smaller crop, deeper fruit.
Why in the cold
A dormant vine barely bleeds and heals cleanly, and pruning late in winter delays budburst a little, which keeps the young shoots out of the worst of the spring frost.
The cuttings
Nothing leaves the vineyard. The canes are mulched between the rows, and the sheep that graze the hill in winter tidy up the rest.