December 2020
Over Christmas and between the years, most winemakers take a break and go on a skiing holiday. Unfortunately, this will not be possible this year, so some winemakers might simply grab their pruning scissors and combine the good with the useful by starting the pruning in the vineyard.
When the sun is shining, you can relax from the hustle and bustle of the Christmas business. And the ingested vitamin D should also strengthen the immune system.
In traditional trellis system, the vertical shoot positioning, pruning is still the most complex manual work in the vineyard. In spite of all alternative forms of trellis systems, most wineries still cut their vines back to a single branch in the classic way. The goal is to get around 10 to 15 buds for the coming year. In the meantime, manual pruning scissors operated with muscle power have been replaced by electrically powered battery scissors. Taking out the wood of the cut vines is done in a second step by less experienced assistants. Then the vine wood lying on the ground is chopped up and remains in the vineyard as organic fertilizer.
