Not much happens during the winter, while the vines are dormant, except for pruning -- but that's no small feat. Pruning will very much affect the vine's development during the growing season, its balance and the canopy. And balanced vines produce balanced wines!
 |  |
This is a cane-pruned vine, where the two arms have become too distant from each other. To re-train it,
we leave a sucker that next year can be trained to form a perfect cane. |
And this is a cane-pruned vine that we have re-trained. Last year's sucker has become the new cane, so now the two arms are close to each other and will make for a
perfectly balanced canopy. |
 |  |
We found a really well pruned cordon vine! Look at the perfect positions of each cordon arm: four on the
right and four on the left. |
This is the 'snaggletooth' pruning system that we have developed for Albariño. It forms a divided canopy
without a double arm that would make the vine much bigger and negatively impact quality. |
 |  |
We had a lot of good company yesterday! Besides our
friend Molly, Tony's cute and smart dog, this little puppy was so much fun -- we ran and ran together! |
Digging for gophers is a fabulous part of our vineyard walks! We took turns at getting in the hole -- but no,
we didn't catch a single gopher. Just ended up really messed up with mud! |
