WINTER HAS STEPPED IN AND PRUNING HAS STARTED
Winter pruning of the vine is a very important operation for the vineyard; it determines the future harvest.
It is the first stage in the vine-growers’ year and it is put into the hands of experienced vintners.
Pruning is carried out manually during the whole wintertime. Each vine-plant is pruned individually with a particular attention. Pruning is adapted in function of the vitality of each plant.
The goal is :
to give a certain shape to the vine-plant (for example for the preparation of tying)
to control production by limiting the number of buds.
In the Saint-Emilion region, the number of buds is limited to about 60,000 per hectare.
At CAP DE MERLE, we have started pruning and we will finish only beginning February.
Different ways of pruning exist depending on the wine region. At CAP DE MERLE, we proceed to simple guyot cut. This way of pruning is the most common in the Libournais.
The picture below shows a vine-plant before and after simple guyot pruning.
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