Bend without breaking

Winemakers have to recognize subtle nuances of flavor, as every child knows. But we also have to demonstrate a great deal of sensitivity in other areas – especially at this time of year. Because now it's all about bending without breaking!

First, the weather has to be right. The vines need to have a little more sap than in winter so they don't become too dry and brittle. Ideally, there'll also be a steady drizzle. When the time is right, we'll get started:

The sprawling branches of the vines are gently bent horizontally and wrapped several times around the cross-stretched wire ropes that run through each row. They are then tied to the wire ropes with a machine ( which we affectionately call a Pellenc binder in the Palatinate region ). Such a hand-held machine weighs just under a kilo, so it's a whole new muscle for a winemaker!

Electric tying machine Pellenc Fixion 2.0

The "Pellenc Binder" has a spool of the special wire we use. We call it binding wire. You hold the machine against the wire ropes with the vine, press the button, and the binding wire shoots out, forms a loop, and tightens (see video clip). We repeat this several times for all 32,000 plants , each with one to two branches per vine!

Yes, this is a job where you can let your mind wander, listen to podcasts, learn three or four foreign languages, and make phone calls (with a headset) – or simply enjoy the crunch of the ground beneath your boots and the first birdsong of spring while your hands skillfully caress the vines into the right position.

In this short video clip, our former viticulture student Sarah shows you how it's done!

But why do we do that at all? Why don't we just let the vineyards shoot up and down? A grapevine has two goals in life: It wants to grow and bear fruit. However, these two goals are contradictory: Either it puts its energy into large branches and growth OR it puts its energy into the fruit. By pruning and later bending, we ensure that the vine concentrates on its fruit. That's why the trunk of a grapevine is always only about one meter high - and winegrowers are ideally small. :-) Not quite as small as jockeys, but as a two-meter person it is still a bit strenuous in the vineyards.

So if you want to judge how old a vineyard is, the height doesn't mean anything. The thickness of the trunks, on the other hand, tells the shrewd eye roughly how old a vineyard is. A grapevine bears fruit from the first year. After 35 years, the investment has roughly paid for itself (i.e. paid for itself). Apart from that, there is really no expiration date, because the yield only decreases slightly over the years. How long the vine lasts is therefore at the discretion of the winemaker. Incidentally, the oldest vineyard in the world is in the neighboring town of Rhodt ; it is a Gewürztraminer and is just a tender 400 years old. It, too, is still producing grapes!

But back to the here and now of the winemaking year: After pruning, we wait for spring... and now, finally, the vineyard can rest until the first leaves sprout. The vines grow around the binding wire... until pruning next year. (The binding wire, by the way, is designed to disintegrate within a year.) Because every year, Groundhog Day is over.

All that work makes you thirsty. Our Muscat may not be a Gewürztraminer and is only 13 years old, but it's at least as aromatic and full-bodied as its older "brother," the Gewürztraminer.

You can find it here in our online shop.

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