What does a vine look like after a “facelift”?

“Facelift” is a cliché, with some people getting a facelift to look good and others getting a facelift to regain confidence in their lives. Unlike the human face-lift, the vine has been “facelifted” by the winegrowers, pruned, and framed, either to get sunlight or to avoid invasion by disease …… The vines have been given a facelift, but what will they look like?

Basket

Santorini, Greece, is a windy volcanic island in the Aegean Sea with very strong sea breezes. To protect the vines and fruit from the strong sea winds, the winegrowers prune the vines short and coil them into a basket-like shape, allowing the fruit to grow on the inside.

Bush shape

The bush vine has a short trunk, allowing new branches to grow up from the top of the trunk or spread in all directions. The vine is shaped like a wine glass, which is why it is also known as the “Gobelet” style. Gobelet is popular in the hot, dry Mediterranean regions of Languedoc, Cyprus, and central Spain because it creates a leafy canopy that provides good shade and prevents the grapes from being burned by the hot sun.

Pergola

Pergola, which is more common in Italy, Argentina and Spain, is a cultivation style designed for hot and dry areas. The branches of the vines grow along a high trellis that is built to produce fruit that hangs high under the branches and leaves, protected from direct sunlight.

Smart-Dyson style

The Smart-Dyson style is widely used in wine-producing countries such as the United States, Australia, Chile, Argentina, Spain, and Portugal. This style of cultivation involves tying the new branches from the main vine’s short branches to the vine in an alternating upward and downward pattern. This creates a well-ventilated canopy that is less likely to harbor disease and can reduce the use of pesticides, so the Smuts-Dyson style is also commonly used for vines grown organically.

Guyot

Guyot pruned vines usually retain one or two long branches, each of which is fixed horizontally to the vine. The single Guyot pruning style is called Single Guyot, while the two Guyot pruning style is called Double Guyot. This type of cultivation is easy to maintain and can limit the yield of the vine to improve the quality of the fruit.

Vertical Shoot Positioning (VSP)

As the name implies, vertical shoot positioning is the tying of new vine shoots to the vine in a vertical orientation. This type of shaping is good for keeping the canopy open, which not only gives the grapes more sunlight, but also creates good ventilation to avoid fungal growth. However, in hot areas, the growers untie the tops of the new branches and let them hang down naturally to form shade to prevent the grapes from getting sunburned. In addition, this type of racking holds the grape branches at a certain height, which facilitates machine harvesting.

Geneva Double Curtain

Geneva Double Curtain is a system in which the new branches of the vine are divided horizontally into two curtains and grow downwards. This style of cultivation divides the dense canopy in two, reducing the density of the canopy and increasing the area of grapes exposed to light.

Lyre

The harp style at Château Romain-Fritz is similar to the Geneva double-curtain style, where the new branches of the vines are also divided horizontally into two curtains. The difference is that the new branches of the harp vines grow upwards, resembling a harp. This style of cultivation provides good ventilation and light penetration and prevents the growth of mildew.

Taille Chablis

Champagne Henriette Bazin. Chablis is often used by Champagne winemakers to prune Chardonnay vines. Vines with this type of pruning usually have 3-5 main vines that are about 10 years old, and each vine retains a long branch at the top. Because more perennial wood is retained, Chablis-style vines are better able to store carbohydrates and nitrogen and are better able to cope with climate change.

The “face-lifting” of the vines, with their variety of shapes and styles, allows them to adapt well to the local terroir and produce excellent fruit for the winemakers to produce even better wines.

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