The Vine

It is extraordinary that this evocative drink with such a variable taste that we call wine is the fermented juice of a fruit: the grape. Every drop of wine is rain (in warmer regions, irrigation water) collected from the earth through the plant that produces grapes, the vine, and from sunlight converted through the process of photosynthesis into sugar. capable of fermenting with a little help from soil nutrients.

During the first two or three years of life, the vine is too busy creating a root system and forming a sturdy woody trunk to produce anything more than a few grapes. From this moment on, if it were allowed to develop naturally, it would spread and produce some fruit, but it would need much more energy to create new shoots and woody branches (with which it would possibly climb a tree) than They would cover up to half a hectare of land, with new root systems where the branches came into contact with the ground.

This natural form of reproduction, known in French as provignage (layering), was the system used in ancient times to establish vineyards. In order to prevent the grapes from rotting or being eaten by mice, given that the clusters were lying on the ground, they were supported with small supports that were placed under the stems. If the vines grew near trees, they used their tendrils to climb to high heights.

To plant a new vineyard, each vine originates from a cutting, either planted or grafted onto the already rooted cutting of another species selected for the type of soil or for resistance to drought or nematodes, for example. Nursery managers should try to take cuttings only from healthy, virus-free plants. The small grafts are planted outside for a season until they take root. If there is any risk of infection, meristem culture only uses virus-free tissues, which requires in vitro culture to convert them into a rooted plant.

Between three and six years after planting, the vine stabilizes and fills the space allocated for it above the ground to produce an increasingly concentrated wine, probably thanks to an increasingly complex root system., which regulates the contribution of water and, in many cases, nutrients.

Production begins to decline after twenty-five or thirty years (or, more frequently, the vine succumbs to some disease or the grape variety falls out of fashion), so the plants are uprooted when they stop producing. be profitable. Wine from vines older than thirty years usually commands a premium and may be labeled as a product of old vines (vieilles vignes in French).

THE VINE THROUGHOUT THE GROWING SEASONBUD

DEVELOPMENT: Already in the month of March, in northern Europe, and in September, in the southern hemisphere, the buds that remain after winter pruning begin to swell and reveal the first signs of green plants emerging from the shoots. twisted This occurs when temperatures reach 10°C.

THE LEAVES SEPARATE: Within ten days of sprouting, the leaves begin to separate from the shoot, and the tendrils begin to be visible. They are still very vulnerable to frost, which can still occur in mid-May or mid-November in the coldest areas of the northern and southern hemispheres, respectively. Late pruning can delay sprouting.

FLOWERING BEGINS: Between six and thirteen weeks after bud break, the crucial flowering phase of the vine begins, with the appearance of tiny caps of tightly packed petals. They look like miniature versions of the grapes that form when the caps fall and expose the ovaries to be fertilized by pollen and create berries.

FLOWERING EFFECTS: The size of the final crop depends on the success of pollination. Bad weather during the flowering stage (ten to fourteen days) can cause running (peduncles with many small grapes wrinkle, causing them to fall) and millerandage (grapes of different sizes in the same bunch).

Veraison: Shoots that survive frost and rain produce hard, green grapes (in June/December). These grapes will swell in summer, and in August/February they will undergo veraison (they soften and become reddish or yellow). The ripening process begins, and sugars begin to accumulate rapidly inside the grape.

FULL MATURITY: The priority is to measure the level of ripeness (and, especially, to decide when perfect ripeness is reached). Varieties with dark skins should have a dark, uniform tone, but the stems and peduncles should begin to lignify (become woody) and the seeds should lack greenness.

VINE CYCLE

Sprouting: You can consider this stage as the phase in which the birth of the vine occurs. It takes place in the month of March. At the beginning of spring.

Foliation: During foliation, in the months of April and May, the first leaves of the vine begin to appear. This is a quite important moment for the plant, it is the stage in which the sugar and acid molecules are formed in the leaves of the vine, this will be essential for the flavor of the grape and later of the wine.

Flowering: At the end of May and beginning of June comes the moment of flowering of the plant (THE VINE), it is the moment in which the embryos of the flowers appear, which will later give rise to the grains of the grapes.

Fertilization and fruiting: Towards the end of June and beginning of July, the flowers that we talked about in the previous stage begin to bear fruit, fruits of a very green color due to their chlorophyll load. If it is considered that the vine is very loaded, you can proceed to carry out what is known as green harvesting, which consists of eliminating part of the young clusters.

Veraison: It takes place throughout the summer and is that moment in which the grapes change color until they reach their final shade. In white grapes, the color goes from green to yellowish and in red grapes, they acquire a pink color that will gradually darken. It should be noted that in the month of August another thinning is carried out to equalize the level of ripening for the harvest.

Maturation: Maturation takes place between the months of August and October (time of arrival of the harvest). During this phase, the grapes acquire a sweeter flavor. This is because during photosynthesis the acids in the leaves decrease and their sugar content increases.

Harvest: It is the end of the cycle, that is, here the vine cycle "culminates". In this final process, different controls are carried out to check the degree of ripeness of the grapes and take advantage of whether this is the most suitable before starting the harvest.

Stop: Once the harvest is finished, we can say that the vine enters a process of vegetative stop, it is a period of latency, of lethargy. You could say that the vine sleeps from November to March.