Once the arduous task of pruning has been completed, and the weight and strain is finally relieved from the wires that support the vines, we can begin the repairs. Every winter there are not only broken wires, but sometimes even the granite posts themselves succumb to the strain of carrying the huge weight of the canopy. Of course replacing a wire or a post is not quite as simple as it might sound, and indeed, when new vineyards are constructed the work is nearly always carried out by a specialist known as an ‘alambrador’ (a ‘wire man’).

The biggest difficulty is keeping the tension in the wire itself. Clearly it needs to be both strong and taught as it is stretched between the posts, and this is no easy task. We are quite lucky that our own guys have enough experience to carry out the majority of repairs themselves, which happily saves us just a few pennies. 

In today’s photo we are carrying out a repair in our ‘Pazo’ vineyard where you will not only notice the special tools that are needed, but also the substantial size of the old vines that these wires have to support.

Once the arduous task of pruning has been completed, and the weight and strain is finally relieved from the wires that support the vines, we can begin the repairs. Every winter there are not only broken wires, but sometimes even the granite posts themselves succumb to the strain of carrying the huge weight of the canopy. Of course replacing a wire or a post is not quite as simple as it might sound, and indeed, when new vineyards are constructed the work is nearly always carried out by a specialist known as an ‘alambrador’ (a ‘wire man’).

The biggest difficulty is keeping the tension in the wire itself. Clearly it needs to be both strong and taught as it is stretched between the posts, and this is no easy task. We are quite lucky that our own guys have enough experience to carry out the majority of repairs themselves, which happily saves us just a few pennies. 

In today’s photo we are carrying out a repair in our ‘Pazo’ vineyard where you will not only notice the special tools that are needed, but also the substantial size of the old vines that these wires have to support.