Spring waits for no one

With these milder temperatures and the melting snow, it seems that spring has started a bit early this year. This has us excitedly starting our vineyard work for the season!

While our vinifera vines remain buried under the soil, we can start working on the canes above ground.

Above is a picture of our Gewurztraminer vines. You can see the aerial canes above ground. There are also 6-8 canes per vine buried under the mound of soil around the vine. We start by pruning off all of the aerial canes and pulling them out of the vineyard to suppress any potential diseases that have overwintered on these canes. 

Once the soil has dried out a bit more and we are able to get our tractor in to the vineyard, we will start to remove the soil from over the buried canes. When we have these 6-8 canes exposed, we will prune down to two canes per vine and tie them to the fruiting wire. We aim to have these practices completed before the expected bud break around early to mid-May.

We also have about 1.5 acres of hybrid vines. These vines are much more tolerant of the winter temperatures so we do not have to bury these vines under the soil. This means that we can get started working on these vines right away. These vines get pruned to 2-4 canes per vine depending on the health and productivity of each vine. The canes then get tied to the fruiting wire in anticipation of bud break. 

Timing of these tasks is crucial so that we can eliminate any risk of mechanical damage from un-burying and tying the vines which would reduce our overall yield. It’s a busy but exciting time as we welcome this new season!

If you have a question or a topic you would like to know more about, we would love to hear from you! Please email us at winery@harwood.co (yes..CO) and we will cover it in a future post!

Our Tasting Room is open for purchase or picking-up pre-placed orders from noon-5pm everyday. We are not serving tastings or food pairings per provincial regulation during the spring and summer of 2020. Stay tuned for further info on this schedule.

Harwood wines are available in many LCBO and Grocery stores all over Ontario. Here’s a link Where To Buy Our Wine