During the winter, while the vines are resting, they must be pruned. Pruning is an ancestral technique to tame the vine because when growing naturally it is an heliophilous liana (that means a kind of liana that likes the sun light).
It is mainly pruning the canes so to organize the structure that the vine plant is going to have and control the future production and leave a well-balanced number of dormant buds. These precious buds, will protect the future shoots and inflorescence inside them. The new bunches will then grow from the shoots at the end of the following growing season (infructescence of the vine).
Pruning the vine is a real art that needs the worker to have a lot of attention and know-how that is anyway causing some cuts to the plant. It is mainly done by my collaborators, under my constant supervision. Sometimes when I can I do it with them too. The more the vine plant will raise, the more it will take a certain shape according to the winemaker choices and decisions, that uses the pruning shears as a crayon.
The vine plant structure is the result of perennials woody parts that, thanks to the controlled growth of the vine, will conquer more and more space around itself.
So…happy pruning to you all!
Iacopo Rossi