Learning to Prune the Vines

After a long winter’s sleep, the vineyards are waking up. Bud break, when the first buds emerge on the vine, is here. That means grape growers are busy pruning the old vines to make room for the new growth.
A few weeks ago, I got to try my hand at pruning. I actually helped prune a row of Cabernet Sauvignon vines at Tierra Roja in Napa Valley. It was part of an innovative workshop put on by Tierra Roja owner, Linda Neal. Linda has twenty years of experience managing vineyards throughout the Napa Valley and now she is sharing some of that knowledge with a series of Vineyard Clinics on tying and pruning vines.
I joined a pruning clinic with two groups of coworkers from restaurants Press in St. Helena and La Toque in Rutherford. We gathered bright and early at the Tierra Roja vineyards right off the Silverado Trail in Oakville. The workshop started out very civilized, with steamy cappuccinos and pastries, Linda fueling us for the work ahead. She promised it would be work!
Before we headed out into the vineyards, Linda gave us each the proper gear: safety goggles, extra sharp bypass pruning shears, a sharpening stone (in case our shears became dull), gloves, a ring knife to cut difficult stems, a Tierra Roja apron for storing our gear and a Tierra Roja baseball cap to keep the sun out of our eyes. 
First, Linda described the pruning process, teaching us the basics of how to trim vines. You might be surprised to learn how much of the vine is cut back, leaving only one or two buds on the two best stems. Linda told us to think about the way the vine will grow before we cut, so that the vine doesn’t have to fight for exposure to air and sunshine. She suggested leaving a hand’s width between bud spurs so the vine doesn’t have to compete to survive.  
After a quick primer on pruning, Linda led us up to her trellised backyard vineyard. She demonstrated by pruning a few vines and then turned us loose in the vineyard. What would take a seasoned pruner only a few minutes, took us nearly an hour. Each of us contemplated, and in my case, discussed, every cut to every vine. I was nearly paralyzed by the fear that one false move might ruin a perfectly healthy vine. In reality, vines are amazingly resilient, but the right pruning techniques can dramatically affect fruit production. We were quite a sight, a dozen rookies in the Tierra Roja vineyards doing our best not to mess up the vines or cut off our fingers. It was fun work, and since we only did a handful of vines each, it never got too taxing. Most vineyard workers do ten times the work we accomplished in a single day.   
Linda gave each of us small tags to label a vine as our very own, and then invited us to come back and visit our vines and check their progress throughout the year. She says learning how grapes are grown gives people a more personal connection to her wine. Linda says many wine fans are thirsty for more knowledge about the winemaking process and her clinics give them a way to actually get into a vineyard and get hands-on with grape vines.
After the work was done, we hiked out of the vineyard to find smoothies, mimosas and more goodies waiting for us. Not your typical post-pruning fare, but a delightful way to wrap a fun and educational clinic.
This is the first year Tierra Roja is offering the clinics on tying and pruning, but Linda says if the interest is there, she’ll keep making them available to the public. The cost is $150 per person, which includes a bottle of Tierra Roja Cabernet Sauvignon, the apron, baseball cap, goggles and gloves.
For more information you can email Tierra Roja at Linda@tierraroja.com. You can see my pruning adventure at Tierra Roja on a future segment of In Wine Country, Sundays at 6:30 p.m. on NBC11.