To properly manage a grapevine, one must guide their growth into the desired shape and structure. From planning, pruning, and trellising, the grapevine can be formed into something both easily manageable for farming as well as quality oriented and productive. This agricultural art is called vine training.
For our vines, tasks related to training are a year-round endeavor. Appropriate management can help control and balance the grapevine’s canopy which will optimize sunlight exposure and lead to maximized fruit quality, even and appropriately timed ripening, and appropriate crop levels.
After planting vines (and ensuring the vineyard is established correctly with regard to vine spacing, appropriate rootstock + soil combination, etc.), establishing the right trellising system is the next step. Our indigenous grape varieties will not grow effectively in the same trellis as would be found in the vineyards of Bordeaux.
Over the last 60 years, we have tested many different strategies for our trellising systems. Every variety is distinct and requires a unique management system to ensure that the highest quality fruit is harvested every year. Thankfully, our experience and research paired with the research from institutions like Cornell University, UC Davis, and even Missouri State or Mizzou over the years has informed appropriate strategies for each variety. However this year, we will be planting an experimental vineyard with lost and rediscovered pre-Prohibition cultivars and will get to experiment once more. These historic varieties we are planting over the next few years will require us to uncover lost knowledge about what these grapes need to thrive.
A good vineyardist trains their vines based on some key factors: overall goals for the grapes, the grape variety’s species and its preference to different training systems, vigor of the variety they are growing, how the rest of their vineyard is planted to examine efficiency, whether environment or climate concerns such as winter injury need to be accounted for, and harvesting and pruning considerations. All of this helps inform what training system and management tactics are best for your grapevines.
With all that said, vine training and management keeps us very busy in our vineyards all year round. It’s all in the service of quality estate grown fruit and the highest quality wine possible. As the saying goes, “Great wine is made in the vineyard.”
– Nathan Held, Vice President