Débourrement

Living in the midst of vineyards, I have come to be interested in the process of caring for a vineyard and making wine. Many of the older wineries in the area were established by French or Italian growers and their terms came to be used interchangeably with English. 

La Taille (pruning) takes place sometime between November and March, depending on when the sap leaves the vine. It is customary to leave two branches on the vine with 3 to 5 buds per branch.The vine in the picture is  an exception to the common practice of  la taille guyot double because it is an ancient vine which are typically 'head pruned' and not trained to grow along a wire.

Le Maillage (stitching)
maintenance of the acacia  wood stakes, 'carrassones' which hold up the, wires that support the branches takes place in March and April

Le Pilage (folding)
Branches are folded and attached to the lowest wire during March and April using staples or string.

Les Cavaillons
A tractor goes through the rows to ventilate the soil and remove weeds from April through harvest.  Many wineries here are using sheep to do this job as well as to fertilize the vines.

Le Relevage
The branches growing up from the lowest wire are tied to higher wires from June to September

La Coupe (leaf thinning)
Leafed out branches are trimmed to limit growth and facilitate the effects of the sun from June to September

Floraisin
The appearance of clusters tiny grape buds on the vines. 

Veraison 
The turning of the colors of the grapes from green to yellow or red.

Les Vendanges (Harvest)
This takes place when the grapes are determined to be ripe as according to  a  Brix scale which indicates how much sugar has developed in the juice of the maturing grapes. This is often referred to here as 'the crush' and is typically a very labor intensive month as the grapes need to be hand picked, destemmed, crushed and put into fermentation barrels within a short, weather dependent period of time. 

In this county, the major pruning maintenance and harvesting tasks are done by skilled Hispanic workers. The wine could not be produced without them.