We strive to maintain quality in every vineyard activity.

QUALITY BEGINS WITH PRUNING

At Tre Gatti, we prune as late in February as possible.  The longer we can delay pruning, the later budbreak occurs.  There is always the chance of a late frost, which can have a devastating effect on the new buds and the grape production for the season.             

The free-standing vines are pruned to vertical cordons.  By carefully selecting the number and placement of the buds left on the cordons, or arms, we can determine the size of the year’s crop.  Each bud left after pruning will produce a cane with two bunches of grapes. We know at this point in the maturity of our vineyard, most strong, healthy vines can ripen about seven to ten pounds of grapes.  Too heavy a crop will reduce the concentration of fruit flavors in the grapes while too light a crop reduces the amount of wine we are able to produce.            

Each vine has five cordons or arms.  If the vine is strong and healthy, we typically leave three buds on each cordon for a total of 15 healthy buds per vine. If bloom time and fruit set are perfect, we can expect to have 30 lbs. of grapes on each vine.   However, our hillside vineyard receives a great deal of wind during the spring when the fruit is setting.  Our clone, Syrah 877 is particularly susceptible to shatter which can reduce our fruit set by as much as half.               

Pruners spend years learning how to determine the best placement and spacing for the buds to be left on the vine, and for each vine it’s different.  An experienced pruner can make these decisions quickly and correctly and can prune upwards of 50 vines an hour.

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