Why do we have to prune the vine in winter ?

In December the vine is immersed in its long winter sleep. A rest that does not enjoy the winemaker. For him, fresh season rhymes with dry pruning. A long step during which it is necessary to eliminate more than 80% of the vine shoots appeared past year.

Radicale, the winter pruning is a guarantee of quality for the wine that will be produced during successive harvests.

In December the vine is immersed in its long winter sleep. A rest that does not enjoy the winemaker. For him, fresh season rhymes with dry pruning. A long step during which it is necessary to eliminate more than 80% of the vine shoots (young twigs) appeared past year.

The vine is a liana that only seeks to emancipate anarchically, hence the need to prune, so that it gives fewer clusters, but heavy and juicy.

Prune the vine to limit the number of buds

Curved back, the vine-grower selects the vine shoots according to the mode of pruning chosen (Guyot, goblet…). He only keeps the desired number of buds, to find the best balance between quantity and quality of the future harvest.

This work ends mid-March when the vine comes out of its torpor to start its vegetative cycle. The sap then rises through the spared vine shoots and seeps by the notches not healed yet. And all the better that the work done during winter has…beared fruits.

_ B.R.

Source : Science&Vie – December 2016

Photo : © Christophe Deschanel – Vine pruning – November 2016