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Pruning the vines at Château la Gardine
Château de la Gardine, january 2025
As winter envelops the prestigious Châteauneuf-du-Pape vineyards in its cool mantle, meticulous activity reigns in the rows of vines at Château de la Gardine.
In the morning mist, the estate's teams are busy with one of the most crucial stages of the wine-growing year: winter pruning.
From the origins to the present day :
Legend has it that goats were the first ‘vine pruners’, devouring the buds that grew on the trees, today pruning is a meticulous art that requires expertise and precision. At Château de la Gardine, this ancestral practice is part of an approach to wine-making excellence.
The vine, a liana by nature, needs to be tamed to express the best of itself. ‘Pruning is much more than a simple technical gesture, it's the founding act of the future harvest’, explains Patrick Brunel, owner of the estate. This operation, carried out during the vegetative rest period from December to March, allows the vine stock to be sculpted and shapes future production in terms of both quality and quantity.
What you need to know :
There are two types of pruning:
- The shoots from the previous year are cut off, but 1 or 2 are kept whole (each shoot bears around ten buds).
- Cutting short, leaving 2 or 3 buds per shoot. These buds will be the new year's shoots.
Adapting to the terroir of Châteauneuf-du-Pape :
On the estate's 54 hectares, 50 of which are planted with red grapes and 4 with white, the teams work with precision, row after row. Each stroke of the secateurs is carefully considered, and each pruning decision influences the future harvest and, by extension, the quality of the wines.
Winter pruning is therefore short. In Châteauneuf-du-Pape, two types of pruning are authorised:
- gobelet pruning
- double cordon de Royat palissé pruning
Gobelet pruning
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Double cordon de Royat pruning
The diversity of the grape varieties grown on the estate calls for different approaches:
- Grenache, the emblematic grape variety that originated in Spain, is pruned into goblets, a traditional shape that enables it to withstand the wind while protecting the bunches from the intense sun.
- Syrah, which is more fragile, benefits from protective trellising.
- Mourvèdre, which brings structure and complexity to the blends, is also gobelet-pruned.
Regulated practice :
Pruning follows strict rules:
- Maximum two eyes per spur
- 12 eyes maximum per vine for vines less than 40 years old
- 15 eyes maximum for older vines
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Impact on quality :
This pruning contributes directly to the reputation of the estate's wines. The old vines, which are naturally less productive, produce high quality grapes that are fully expressed in prestigious cuvées such as the ‘Générations Gaston-Philippe’ and the ‘Tradition’.
Pruning remains a crucial moment in the Château de la Gardine viticultural calendar, combining tradition with the highest standards of quality. It's a work of patience and precision that lays the foundations for the future harvest.
Feature story made at Château de la Gardine, Route de Roquemaure, Châteauneuf-du-Pape
