The view from the south side of the pruning acre.

I awoke this morning feeling completely refreshed, but realized the warmth from the snuggle side of my body wasn’t half as warm as usual. I cautiously peeked out from under the king quilt and found Boy2 curled up next to me instead of my Vineman–explaining why I was only half warm. A slap at the alarm clock and I found out I had been allowed to sleep in until 8:30 am. The Vineman started pruning season without me.

We start pruning season in mid January. We could start pruning as soon as the vines go dormant, but we’ve found that come November, our family is ready for a vineyard break. We enjoy our holidays and then start the New Year with pruning shears in hand. January in Maryland doesn’t have the same bite as the Missouri winters of my youth, so while the weather can be cold, generally its not bitter.

Today, we were treated to a flurry of snow, which barely covered the ground. I pressed my nose to the glass and gave my Vineman a call to see if he would give me a lift over to the vineyard. They started pruning in our proofing acre—figuring it was best to warm dormant pruning skills up before heading on to the commercial Vidal, Petit Verdot and Barbera acres. Our proofing acre has 10 wine grape varieties—each with its own row—and depending on how well the vines do, we determine what we will plant in earnest. The fruit of the proofing acre is turned into wine for our private consumption.

My vineman said he thought he’d let me sleep in and he’d come over to pick me up in the afternoon. Then he mentioned how much he would like to have Potatoes Au Gratin for lunch and so I knew why I was allowed to sleep in. The Vineyard Potatoes Au Gratin was bubbling in the stove when he came back to the farmhaus. You can read how I made it, here.

When we arrived at the proofing acre, he prepared a pruning bucket complete with every cordon tie you could imagine and a pair of sharp shears. After a brief refresher course of Vertical Shoot Positioning (VSP) trellis cordon training and spur pruning, I was left to the Marsanne vine row and my podcasts. The Vineman divided the field by North and South quadrants. We were to leave one bud per spur on the South side; 2 buds per spur on the North side. Ger aims to see what effect upon the vigor the 1 versus 2 buds would have upon the vines this year. Most of our proofing acre is in its sixth leaf, with the oldest three rows in their seventh leaf. The trunks are getting gloriously thick and craggy barked. Their cordons, however, are older as well and hard choices had to be made. I was to count the number of spurs along the cordon.  If those spurs were less than 12, I was to see if there was a suitable cordon substitute among the shoots closest to the trunk. Its always a tricky and nerve-wrecking endeavor. If you remove the cordon first, but break the substitute shoot, you halved a vine’s productivity for a long while. Luckily, I didn’t need to perform this maneuver often and managed to get through the day without many severe errors. The temperatures did drop as the day wore on and after 3 hours, my feet ached even though I had two layers of socks on. I should have spent extra time looking for my boots.

Aching feet not withstanding, I love the meditation that comes with pruning our vines and being out in the crisp air. In becoming a VineyardWife and participating in the vine2wine lifecycle, I think I look at a bottle of wine very differently than I did before. When I drink a bottle of small lot wine that isn’t quite my cup of vin, I see it now as a bit of heartache—now that I know the level of effort that went into getting that grape into my glass.