February through March is vineyard pruning time. Here is what the vines looked like in January. They are beautifully silver and shaggy.
Here's a close-up of one of the vines before and after pruning. There's something very meditative for me about pruning. Grapes form on the new vine growth each year, so it's important to do a good job of pruning before bud break. You have to look at each cane individually and determine its destiny for the growing season. The pruning process involves focusing the future growth in an upward direction , minimizing crowding and clipping tendrils that are girdling neighboring canes.
This vine isn't quite finished. As you can see, some of the tendrils still need to be trimmed to prevent girdling of the nearby vines. Also, the old shoots are typically trimmed back to about 3 nodes. For me, the practice of vineyard pruning is a cross between the art of growing bonsai trees and untangling Christmas lights with the benefit of clippers.
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