Plus: the Pinot grigio.

Not to be outdone by the Orange muscat, the Pinot grigio vines are also ready to get started with the 2019 growing season.  I do love the fact that spring is fast approaching.  And I love that I don't have to check it's proximity on a calendar - I have grapevines for that.
I'm starting to panic a little, as I always do this time of year, that with all this rain I may not be able to get all the Syrah and Cabernet sauvignon vines pruned before they want to start going through bud break.  The weather this coming week is forecast to be nice.  We'll see.

Must(cat) you do that?

Apparently, it must.  Despite all the rain we have been having, the Orange muscat vines have decided that they need to get a move on.  Although bud swell is not determined by atmospheric moisture, but rather by soil temperature, it has been rather cool of late, so I wasn't expecting the vines to be so enthused.  Wrong.  Again!
The atmospheric moisture came with an earnest all day today.  I tried to prune in the Syrah vines, but finally gave up as I was spending more time sheltering in the barn, from rain and hail, than actually out in the vineyard pruning.  It was when Vinodog 2 found something to incessantly bark at, in Vinomaker's lumber supply, that I decided to call it a day.  It was then that I discovered...

Don't start me, fuzzy-buddy.

No, stop!  I am not ready for budbreak.  This promiscuous, young Viognier vine, the only Viognier vine in Vinoland, is trying its hardest to get going for the season.  I made it my job to set the little fellow straight, but not before I finished pruning the Pinot grigio vines. 
A good example of apical dominance in Vitis vinifera, albeit a very subtle one, this stunted lateral shoot was having delusions of grandeur.  The whole unit was removed (as is all the lateral growth of this nature), but not before the prospect of an early start to the growing season gave me, well, a little start.