PRUNING

With the end of the growing cycle, we begin one of the most important stages in vineyard management, pruning. A proper pruning helps us to achieve the perfect balance between the vine's growth, production and quality of the future harvest.

The basic objective of pruning is to control the production of the vine by halting the growing cycle through a very labor intensive process of cutting off unwanted vegetation in the form of canes. Specifically selected vines, and vines aged between 40-50 years, are pruned so as to limit production to less than 1 kg of grapes per vine.

This is not easy task, especially when considering the season in which we must work. We are quite familiar with temperatures varying between -4 °C and 5 °C, making for very cold fingers when pruning by hand.

The governmental body that overseas Rioja, called DOCa Rioja, imposes a series of rules which we must abide by when carrying out the annual pruning. We've provided the regulations below for you to gain some understanding of what is expected of us by the DOCa:

In the traditional goblet system, and its many variants, we may not produce more than 12 buds per vine on a maximum of six cordons.

In the case of the trellis system, we may use this form of pruning so long as we conform to the following requirements:

In a double cordon, the maximum load must be distributed to 12 buds per vine along six cordons.

In a system of "vara y pulgar" (stick and thumb), the load must be distributed on a vine with no more than 10 buds; however, the thumb may also carry 1 or 2 buds per vine.

And in the case of Garnacha, the maximum allowed by the DOCa is 12 buds per vine.