Jeremy at Beaulieu Vineyard, Hampshire and The New Forest.

In the picture you can see Jeremy secateurs and loppers in hand ready to prune. Jeremy, Roger and I have been pruning at Beaulieu most of this week and at a guess we are 25% of the way through. We have just about finished the Bacchus, before moving on to the next variety.

It's interesting to watch how the vineyard differs from place to place. At the western side of the vineyard the Bacchus vines are very vigourous, with notably more vigour toward the bottom of the hill. This means pruning is difficult and inevitably takes longer, as there is much more wood to prune away. As we come up the hill the amount of wood reduces. This may be due to the soil across the vineyard or nutrients. In due course we will get a soil analysis so we can tell and target nutrition. Also as we are moving through the vineyard to the east the vines are getting less vigourous. The last few rows of Bacchus that Jeremy and I were pruning on Thursday had much less wood than the early ones. This first year will be the start of getting to know the vineyard and how the vines behave across the whole site.

Now, what are we aiming for when we prune? With the GDC, or Geneva Double Curtain trellising system the pruned vine should look something like this after pruning in winter.

Ok, you may have to use some imagination, but if you were to look from above the vine should be shaped in an 'H' with the trunk coming vertically up to the centre point of the 'H'. The four outer legs form permanent arms, or 'cordons', and have 'spurs' of 2 -3 buds pointing downwards, the new years shoots grow from these on which the grape bunches grow. Got it? Have a look at the sketch I've done.  I'll try to take a before and after picture at Beaulieu for comparison. As you can guess though, reality is somewhat different. We are working with vines that we have not pruned in the past and are mishapen to varying degrees. It will take us a number of years working with the vineyard to get the vines exactly as we would like them. (If ever!)