For perhaps six millennia man has cultivated vines to produce wine, in fact the history of viticulture is closely related to the history of wine, with evidence that humans cultivated wild grapes to make wine as far back as the Neolithic period. Evidence suggests that some of the earliest domestication of Vitis vinifera occurred in the area of the modern countries Georgia and Armenia (Haapala, K., & Haapala, K., 2004).

Since then the knowledge and management of the vine has evolved enormously. Quoting Alain Reynier in his manual of viticulture (1989): “the cultivation of the vine has strongly evolved and modern techniques have been developed to facilitate the work of the winegrower and allow to respond to the requirements of a production linked to the laws of economy and subject to the changing tastes of consumers. Winegrowers must deal with climatic variations, the specific behavior of varieties, fluctuating attacks by pests and diseases, and human and economic difficulties. They must, throughout the year, choose and make the most appropriate decisions for the management of the vineyard.”

Some of the aspects concerning vineyard management are introduced in the previous paragraph. We can separate according to its management, different stages in a vineyard.

• Pre-planting: site selection, ground preparation, irrigation install, variety choice, clone selection, rootstock selection, trellis system.
• Planting
• After planting, the initial years of training and trellising are foundationally important for vine performance.
• Main producing vineyard tasks include pruning, canopy management, soil and irrigation management, grapevine nutrition, vineyard protection against pest and diseases and harvesting.

The management of the vineyard requires balancing the ideals of the outcome with reality of constraints including; labor, machinery, weather, and profitability. The goal of proper vineyard management is to achieve the desired wine quality, while maintaining the long term viability and sustainability of the vineyard.

This section focuses on the answers to the questions of many winegrowers who wonder which vineyard management practices they should follow to achieve their goals of sustained yields and high wine quality.

Grow your wine