Spur of the moment.

Displaying almost perfect form, this Orange Muscat vine was the first vine to be pruned in Vinoland for 2013.  Phew!  I'm always relieved to be finally started with this particular vineyard operation: pruning is the single, most important thing that you can do to a vine.
The pruned piece of wood in the foreground was last year's cane. This year's cane is on the right and grew last year from the uppermost bud of a two bud spur.  This year's two bud spur is on the left and it is the pruning unit that will grow this season and produce next year's cane and two bud spur.  And so on, and so forth.  Get it?  It's easier to grasp in person, I promise.
I'm not totally chuffed with the position of the lower bud, on the new spur, as it's facing too much toward the head of the vine.  But the upper bud, which will be next year's cane, is faultlessly facing along the fruiting wire.  I love pruning.

Spurred on for 2013.

The fair weather continues, so this afternoon I was able to take my traditional New Year's Day walk through Vinoland's vines.  My little promenade, with the Vinodogs in tow, allowed me to make a quick assessment of what I need to do, coming up here shortly, pruning-wise.  This time last year I was hoping that 2012 would be a better growing season than 2011, and it was.  In fact, it couldn't have been any better if it'd tried, so I'm hoping for more of the same in 2013.  Greedy? Absolutely.
As Vinoland's Cabernet Sauvignon vines mature my job becomes simpler.  Of course, it has taken me several years of pruning to convince the young vines' canes and spurs to go exactly where I'd like them to go. And now, for the most part, each vine is beginning to exhibit the ideal model, or at least how the ideal vine exists in this pruners mind.  Thanks little buddies.
A happy, healthy and fruit of the vine filled New Year to everyone.

All stuffed up.

I might have been on holiday, but the grapevines haven't.  There is a lot to do right now out in the vineyard;  suckering the trunks, thinning out the heads and stuffing the shoots into the trellis wires. When I have gently coaxed all the shoots under the first trellis wire the vines will be all stuffed up, just like me, as I returned from Blighty with a nasty virus that has been totally enfeebling.
The weather was pretty nice in Vinoland whilst I was away, glorious by English standards.  The vines all look healthy, verdant and vigorous - and virus free, unlike me.