R-e-s-p-e-c-t

A quick video intro to a vineyard buzzword - respect!

“Vines are alive. They need dynamic architecture.”

If there is such a thing as a rockstar viticulturist, then Marco Simonit fits the bill. With his silver beard (taken care of, no doubt, by a master pruner), agro-chic wardrobe and knack for injecting some flair into the language of vine pruning, I wonder, as I’m listening to him speak at the Cava Meeting in Barcelona in December 2023, whether any single figure has made as much difference to vineyard work in my lifetime.

What Simonit has come to represent is a rapidly-spreading movement to re-think vine pruning so as to avoid making large, damaging cuts to old wood that can be the entry points for trunk diseases. This is achieved by ‘respectful’ pruning, which seeks to work with the natural flow of sap inside the vine.

Marco Simonit, simonitetsirch.com

Simonit is not really responsible for suddenly discovering the concept, though; it was built in to some degree to the design of Guyot pruning (and especially the refinements made by a Charentais grower named Poussard as recorded in René Lafon’s 1921 book “Changes To Be Made In Vine Pruning”, which Simonit cites as a major influence). The knowledge was there, but, the downsides of ignoring it weren’t, until fairly recently, widely acknowledged.

remejeanne

A post shared by @remejeanne

An instagram post by Rhône grower Domaine La Réméjeanne showing what I think of as the octopus-like effect of respectful pruning, here in a ‘tire-bouchon’, or corkscrew system than respects the sap flow by keeping all the cuts on one side of the previous year’s wood.

The problem, Simonit explained in Barcelona, is that “the vine is a creeper - and space is the issue.” Essentially, old-school pruning methods (the kind I learnt about whilst trying to wrangle the small vineyard I helped look after in Kent) were about hacking the thing back, sometimes opening up large wounds in order to keep it in its place. This was a challenge with a very vigorous vineyard: once vines are in the ground, they have a certain amount of space to take up, and that’s it.

Contemporary respectful pruning, though, lets the vine feel as though it’s living its best life as a creeper, growing new wood each year - the ‘dynamic architecture’ Simonit is talking about - whilst not having its precious old wood continuously cut back, opening it up to injury.

I’ve made a short video explaining some of the concepts, and what to look out for if you visit a vineyard that has been pruned with a dash of r-e-s-p-e-c-t.