Flaherty Wines

This season, we made a radical change in the pruning system we use on our Tempranillo vineyard—namely, we’ve switched the vineyard over from a double-cordon trellis to head pruning. For some time now, we’ve been trying to address the uneveness in vine development across the vineyard, and this winter required a hard pruning to promote long-term vine health. That gave us the opportunity to make the switch to head pruning, something we’ve been considering for a while.

The vineyard is planted on a curve. That isn’t a problem for the vines, which can grow in any direction we ask, but wires are another issue–they always go in a straight line between posts. This had two results. First, the vineyard required a lot of posts to keep the wires even remotely on the curve, which was not the most esthetic of options (especially in winter, when we looked out over a graveyard of white posts). Second, the wires tended to push the vines over into the inside of the curve, leaving too much fruit hanging in the shade during the growing season. Head pruning will solve both of these problems.

This year is a transition year, in which the training system is neither a true cordon nor true head pruning. We’ve taken the first, most radical step of cutting back the cordons to leave just a T where the vine will form a head. On each plant, we left three or four short spurs plus two longer spurs (three on more vigorous plants). The short spurs will begin to concentrate growth in the center, while the longer spurs will provide some crop for the 2011 vintage. Our spring thinning will also be aimed at continuing to shape the vines into a round head. Next winter, the two cordon arms will be shortened further to fully eliminate the cordon system, while one or two new canes will be left to round out the vine head.