"You cannot ruin a whole vintage with one bad snip. It's ok to make mistakes. In general, you're doing dramatically more good for the vines than bad." - Philip "The Wizard"
It's March. Most people that work for wineries are abuzz with the first real work of the year: pruning. In my head, I always pictured a man in denim overalls walking down the rows of vines and snipping a few branches here and there. I pictured a zen-like Mr. Miyagi trimming a bonsai to pristine beauty. In a way, pruning grapevines is similar to what I pictured.
However, with everything else I've experienced at the winery so far, there are so many other things I didn't picture. First of all, there is so much work to do. In the first day, while I was being trained, it took us roughly 4 hours to prune one row of vines. We finished triumphantly, but looking around at the roughly 60 other rows was depressing. We need to get all of these pruned within 2-3 weeks. Though all of my snips are beautiful and well-thought right now, I've heard that the quality of the pruning goes down as the days progress.
Luckily, we just got some seasonal reinforcement, and it's so refreshing to get so much more done each day. It finally looks manageable, but tiring nonetheless. I'll just be working farmers' hours for a few more weeks.
It was really nerve-racking at the beginning. I hate making mistakes. I realized that making a wrong cut doesn't really matter after it's done. You can beat yourself up about it, or you can move on. It's not really a wrong cut after it's been done, there's just a new right cut to be made. I'll probably make thousands, if not tens of thousands of cuts of the vine before I'm done this season. I can't get stuck on one that went poorly.
If you see us in the vines when you come out to the winery, give us a wave. We don't bite. We may, however, wave back and show you the blisters on our hands.
I've already got a good farmer's tan, and it's mid-March,
The Winemaker's Apprentice
It's March. Most people that work for wineries are abuzz with the first real work of the year: pruning. In my head, I always pictured a man in denim overalls walking down the rows of vines and snipping a few branches here and there. I pictured a zen-like Mr. Miyagi trimming a bonsai to pristine beauty. In a way, pruning grapevines is similar to what I pictured.
However, with everything else I've experienced at the winery so far, there are so many other things I didn't picture. First of all, there is so much work to do. In the first day, while I was being trained, it took us roughly 4 hours to prune one row of vines. We finished triumphantly, but looking around at the roughly 60 other rows was depressing. We need to get all of these pruned within 2-3 weeks. Though all of my snips are beautiful and well-thought right now, I've heard that the quality of the pruning goes down as the days progress.
Click on the pics to zoom in on before (Left - wild & tall) and after (Right - trimmed & pristine) pruning.
It was really nerve-racking at the beginning. I hate making mistakes. I realized that making a wrong cut doesn't really matter after it's done. You can beat yourself up about it, or you can move on. It's not really a wrong cut after it's been done, there's just a new right cut to be made. I'll probably make thousands, if not tens of thousands of cuts of the vine before I'm done this season. I can't get stuck on one that went poorly.
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| The first stack of trimmed vines. We've had 4 more of these so far! |
If you see us in the vines when you come out to the winery, give us a wave. We don't bite. We may, however, wave back and show you the blisters on our hands.
I've already got a good farmer's tan, and it's mid-March,
The Winemaker's Apprentice
Like the new blog dude, I worked on a Christmas tree farm during middle and highschool. Pruned so many trees !
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