After vintage, the temperature starts to dip here in Rutherglen and winter begins to settle in. This is when our vines start to transition to their dormancy phase.
Brightly coloured autumn leaves fade from vibrant oranges and yellows to reds and browns as they fall to the earth. With only the trunks and the canes remaining, the vineyard team descend to prune and prepare for the next growing season. Winter pruning is one of the most critical aspects of vine management. How and when we prune determines the quality of fruit that can be harvested in the coming season. Different methods of pruning create different densities of canopy which in turn helps us control the levels of photosynthesis while protecting the vines from disease. At Campbells we utilise both cane and spur pruning.
Cane pruning involves cutting the majority of the canes right back to the crown, with no permanent cordon. The two healthiest canes are kept and tied down along the wire, with their buds providing the fruit for the following season. An extra spur is left on the crown to provide a cane for the subsequent season.  With spur pruning, the trunk, crown and two cordons are permanently maintained as the main structure of the vine. Each winter the canes of the previous year are cut
back to leave a number of two bud spurs along each arm. These are equally spaced, and provide the new seasons cane growth with a number of bunches from each new cane.

We also use a variety of different trellis types including the traditional low T-trellis, with 4 cordon arms off each trunk and the VSP (vertical shoot position) trellis with a higher catch wire to lift the foliage which intercepts more sunlight and allows more air circulation around the fruit zone. The bare vines may have you thinking that winter is a kind of shut down period for the team however, this isn’t the case. While it’s true that vines go dormant for the winter and their growth above ground ceases, beneath the frosted vineyard grasses it’s a whole different story. For the months earlier in the year, ripening the grapes is all the vine has been focusing on. After vintage, when the vines aren’t projecting their energy upward to their leaves and fruits, they have energy to spend beneath the ground in their root system. It is this time that the roots grow and soak up soil nutrients to keep the vines strong over the colder months as well as preparing for the warmer weather and the emergence of bud burst come spring. So, the next time you drive by the rows of vineyards in the Rutherglen region, remember that while things may look quiet on the surface, there’s a whole lot of work being done below the ground. Though they may appear dormant, our vines are hard at work preparing for a new growing cycle and with any luck, will give rise to a fantastic vintage.