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Professor Chris? After living in Paris for 6 weeks I returned back to Vienna to begin my new teaching job at the University of Applied Sciences in Krems. I complained so much, err, gave constructive feedback, that I was asked to fix was I thought was wrong. The class of 31 students are doing real marketing projects for small wineries in the region, an idea I stole from my college back in the 90s. My first class was on 24 March and I could barely sleep the night before. I was super nervous right up until class was over and three students came up to me telling me that they already know this is going to be their favorite class, which was gratifying to hear. Back in the Vineyards After last years late frost in May where temperatures dropped to -2C (28.4F) killing all of the early buds I am delaying my pruning until mid-April. Vine plants love to climb so all of their energy goes straight to the apex or the tip of each cane. A cane can have 20 buds on it, which are normally pruned down to less than half, depending on the vigor, variety and age of the vine. But when cutting off the extra buds you risk that those remaining ones die from a late frost. By waiting, if buds #9-12 die I can rely on bud #4 to burst and produce grapes. If I prune now I lose that option. Of course this isn’t possible if you own a large vineyard, but since I am small I can easily prune everything in 2-3 days. For the 2025 vintage I am also expanding. A local winery about 2 kilometers from Kremsleithen has six rows of old organic Riesling they are renting to me. The small plot is called Ried or vineyard Weinzierlberg, which is a premier cru site, known in Austria as 1.ÖTW or Erste Lage. They’ve already been pruned, so my next step is to bind the canes to the trellis and hope we don’t get another late frost. So now you can see why spring makes me nervous.
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