Pruning
The St. Supéry vineyard crew’s major activity for January
is pruning - getting the vines ready for next the spring’s
budbreak. Grape vines are pruned back each year during their winter
dormancy to keep vine growth under control. When growing wine grapes,
it’s important not to let the vine get too big, as a large
vine spends too much of its energy growing canes and leaves, rather
than concentrating flavors in the grapes. While many grape growers
prune vines with large volume crops in mind, St. Supéry prunes
to achieve lower volume per vine, with fruit of exceptional quality.
This is an expensive way to farm grapes, but results in the quality
of wine our customers (and we) expect.
Wintertime pruning is a big job, especially for St. Supéry,
as we own over 700 acres of vineyards. The job takes months to complete,
usually starting in December and finishing in late February. We
start with a vineyard almost as we left it when we harvested in
the fall, with canes from last growing season’s annual growth.
Since harvest, the vine has gone into hibernation, triggered by
decreasing average daily temperature during October and November
Before pruning begins, we assess vineyard growth from last year’s
season. When the vines are free of leaves, our Vineyard Manager
Josh Anstey and Winemaker Michael Beaulac examine each parcel to
see how the vines have developed. If a parcel had slow growing canes
the previous season, we will prune a bit tighter, leaving fewer
buds on the spurs for the upcoming season’s growth. Slower
growth indicates that we should help adjust the vine’s metabolism,
giving it fewer shoots to grow, so it can grow the best fruit possible.
If a parcel was particularly vigorous, we might try containment
methods
such as planting competing crops next to vines to slow them down.
These decisions are often made as a result of the winemaker’s
assessment of how the recently fermented wine (made from that vineyard
parcel) tastes before going into barrel.
St. Supéry has recently purchased a pre-pruning machine to
expedite and improve the pruning process. It removes the gross canes
mechanically so there is less vine material for the expert pruners
to work around, improving the entire process.
Once the gross canes have been removed, our pruning experts come
in for fine-tuning this importantprocess.. Pruning is essentially
readying the plant for the next growing season by limiting the number
of buds the plant has. Leaving more buds can lead to overgrowth
of the plant, but it may be necessary to slow down particularly
vigorous vines. Leaving too few buds can mean a plant will not achieve
its potential, as each bud will sprout a cane that has many leaves
on it…leaves that the plant depends on for energy creation.
Tying
Almost a second phase of pruning, tying is fastening the vine to
its trellising wire so that the vines grow in a configuration
resulting in quality fruit and efficient farming Tying in young
vines, as in the pictures to the right, is a
more time consuming process than that of tying older vines. The
younger vines, in their formative stage, need extra attention.
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Cover
Crops
An important part of St. Supéry’s biodynamic vineyard
strategy is planting cover crops in the off-season, usually in January.
These cover crops offer a variety of benefits, without the introduction
of chemicals to the environment.
The cover crops offer nutrients to the soil. We select a mix of
legumes and barley for cover crops in most areas because of their
high-nitrogen content and their ability to grow large very quickly.
When this biomass is tilled under in June, it will add much-needed
components to the soil for St. Supéry’s sustainable
agriculture plan.
These legumes also create a habitat for beneficial insects –
those that feed on insects that damage or kill grapevines. Basically,
we want the good bugs to live in our vineyards year-round, so they
can feed on the bad bugs that arrive early in the growing season.
The cover crop provides a place for the good guys to live while
the vines are without leaves, so that they stick around and outnumber
the bad guys when the (spring) time comes.
The cover crop is also a time-tested way to keep erosion and soil
compaction under control. Vineyards on a very diverse terrain, such
as as Dollarhide, require such consideration so that a vineyard
doesn’t end up sliding down the hill. The root system of cover
crops can help hold earth together when necessary and also keep
dense soils from compacting further.
Nutrient competition can be a good way to keep the most vigorous
of vines under control. Much like small children, sometimes vines
are far too active and are in need of discipline. We slow down our
rambunctious vines by leaving the cover crops in past the beginning
of the growing season, when most covers are tilled under. The cover
crops then compete for the same nutrients in the soil that the vines
do, thus slowing down the vines’ vigor, often resulting in
more flavorful fruit.
Finally, cover crops allow us to farm using natural solutions, and
avoid chemical intervention whenever possible. Sure, chemicals cold
do the trick, but we prefer to avoid an aseptic environment. We
run a vineyard, not a hospital.
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Vineyard Manager
Josh Anstey inspecting prepruned vines
Just the right
amount of tension
Legume and barley
cover crops at St. Supéry's Rutherford property
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