I heard it on the grapevine...

The weather is glorious - sunny, 10 degrees and quite warm out of the breeze. I have a cup of coffee, (of course it's too early for the local brew) but this whole region of France is famous for its wine and completely covered with the latticed grapevines. Apparently there are more vines in this area than the whole of the new world put together.
In the UK we still see grapevines as warm climate plants that need mild winters, but in reality they are tough and some grape varieties grow in very cold regions. Even here it can get to 10 below during a cold winter. Many of you will know that we have some pretty good vineyards at home too, but for some reason we domestic gardeners still get hung up about pruning - the right technique and the right time.
Here they are looking for both quantity and quality of grapes and as there are literally millions of vines, they start pruning in autumn as soon as they drop their leaves and just keep going right through and are still going now just to get them all done. They cut them hard back to one or two stems with four or five buds. The buds are quickly forming and almost bursting so the race is on, but it just goes to show that grapevines, like so many other plants, really don't really mind when they are pruned as long as it's during the dormant period. They've being doing it like that round here for hundreds of years and the proof of the pudding is in the erm.....drinking. This afternoon I may just have to put that theory to the test! Salut.