The first frosts of winter are always warmly welcomed by us, but perhaps not so much by our vineyard guys. The reason? Well, this type of weather usually signals the start of the pruning season! Despite my my current excuse of having back problems, this is not a job that I really envy at any time of year. It’s a punishing chore, not only for the back, but also for the neck, the shoulders and the arms, made worse of course by our pergola system of vine training…. don’t forget this is all overhead work.

Perhaps on a crisp, dry, sunny day it’s not such a bad thing being out in the fresh air, as long as you’re wrapped up warm, but imagine how unpleasant it can be in a typical Galician winter with the rain beating down in your face (not to mention running up your sleeves as you reach up to prune).

I suppose the only good thing is that the first frost has come much earlier than it did last year – last winter we did not see any before January, and so the start of pruning was delayed until the very end of the year. At least by starting a bit earlier this winter it will take some of the pressure off, but it’s still a job that will take months to complete. Of course pruning is not just the physical act of cutting the vines, once this is done the shoots then have to be ‘trained’ and tied to the wires. Thank goodness we now have machines that doing the tying – remember that it was only a few short years ago when this task was done using short lengths of cord and every knot had to be tied by hand.

The first frosts of winter are always warmly welcomed by us, but perhaps not so much by our vineyard guys. The reason? Well, this type of weather usually signals the start of the pruning season! Despite my my current excuse of having back problems, this is not a job that I really envy at any time of year. It’s a punishing chore, not only for the back, but also for the neck, the shoulders and the arms, made worse of course by our pergola system of vine training…. don’t forget this is all overhead work.

Perhaps on a crisp, dry, sunny day it’s not such a bad thing being out in the fresh air, as long as you’re wrapped up warm, but imagine how unpleasant it can be in a typical Galician winter with the rain beating down in your face (not to mention running up your sleeves as you reach up to prune).

I suppose the only good thing is that the first frost has come much earlier than it did last year – last winter we did not see any before January, and so the start of pruning was delayed until the very end of the year. At least by starting a bit earlier this winter it will take some of the pressure off, but it’s still a job that will take months to complete. Of course pruning is not just the physical act of cutting the vines, once this is done the shoots then have to be ‘trained’ and tied to the wires. Thank goodness we now have machines that doing the tying – remember that it was only a few short years ago when this task was done using short lengths of cord and every knot had to be tied by hand.