One of the many things that winegrowers in The County have learned is that, with our wonderful winters, it is imperative to make sure the vines are protected during the cold weather. This involves going out, usually in late October or early November, and laying the vines down on the ground and then pushing great amounts of dirt on top of them with our tractor and what's called a "v-plow". This is known as "hilling", and the picture on the left is of our vines all cosy in their hills, sleeping through the winter.
This also means that the vines have to be brought back up again in the spring, which is what we've been doing for the last few days. It's a bit of a guessing game as to exactly when to bring the vines up - too early and you'll be out every night lighting the burn piles (more on that in another entry!) to try and keep the frost away, too late and you might have problems with the vines starting to rot from being in the moist thawing ground too long.
So out we all trooped on a chilly April day, bundled up to our necks in warm clothing, to bring up some vines. Kimball had already gone in with the tractor and started pulling the hills down, so theoretically all we had to do was pull the vines up out of the ground and clip them to the lowest wires. Sounds easy, eh? Ha! We handled the baco noir vines first, and the buggers were so anxious to get growing that there were already buds on the vines, even while they were still underground. This meant we had to be very careful bringing them up, as we didn't want to knock any of those fragile little buds off.
The other problem is that, with the moist damp soil and the cool weather, your hands get really cold digging in the dirt to get the vines up. I swear that by the end of the first hour I couldn't feel my fingers any more and by the end of the morning, when we finally broke for a nice warm lunch, it took me five minutes of running my hands under warm water to get them to uncramp! Theoretically you're supposed to wear gloves when you do this, but in reality it doesn't work - even the tight little wool gloves didn't seem to give me enough dexterity to pull up the vines and dig in the ground without damaging the new buds.
"Theoretically" is word you're probably going to see a fair bit in these entries, and usually it will mean "the 'experts' say this, but in reality...". Just a warning. Anyway, the baco's now up and clipped and popping buds out at a great rate - hopefully a good sign for this year's crop. On to the Chardonnay next!