The vineyard
Viticulture
Wine is an agricultural product before it is anything else. This section covers what happens in the vineyard and, just as importantly, which of the claims made about it hold up.
Wine attracts a great deal of confident assertion. Where a widely repeated explanation goes beyond what has actually been demonstrated, the page says so rather than repeating it — that note is part of the topic, not a disclaimer bolted onto the end.
All topics
40 topics.
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Climate and wine style
The largest single influence on what a wine tastes like — larger than grape, producer or winemaking, and the reason the same variety is unrecognisable in two places.
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Climate change and wine
Warming is already reshaping where wine is grown and what it tastes like.
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Harvest and picking decisions
When to pick — the single most consequential decision a producer makes each year.
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How a season becomes a vintage
Which weather events matter, when they matter, and why "a hot year" is not the same as "a good year".
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How grape varieties work
Varieties, clones, crossings and hybrids — and why the distinctions matter.
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Phylloxera
The aphid that destroyed European viticulture, and the grafting solution still used today.
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Ripening: several clocks running at once
Sugar, acid, tannin, colour and aroma each mature on their own schedule — which is why the picking decision is hard.
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Terroir
A genuinely useful idea that also carries a lot of unsupported claims.
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The annual growth cycle
What happens to a vine through the year, and where the risks sit.
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Altitude
Elevation lowers mean temperature, often widens the day–night range and raises UV — and does not simply mean "cooler".
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Altitude, aspect and slope
How the shape of the land changes the climate of a vineyard.
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Biodynamic viticulture
Organic farming plus a set of practices derived from Rudolf Steiner — and an honest look at the evidence.
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Budburst
The moment the vine wakes up — and the point at which a single cold night can remove a year’s crop.
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Canopy management
Controlling leaves and shoots to manage sunlight, airflow and ripening.
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Clones and massal selection
Which version of a variety you plant, and how much diversity you keep.
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Diseases and pests
What attacks vines, and why humid regions face a fundamentally harder job.
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Flowering and fruit set
The two weeks that decide how much crop there will be — and where coulure and millerandage come from.
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Frost and weather hazards
The events that can destroy a crop, and what growers do about them.
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Grafting: why almost every vine is two plants
A European fruiting variety joined to an American root system — the solution to phylloxera, and now used for much else besides.
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Heat and heatwaves
Beyond a threshold the vine stops photosynthesising, and additional heat stops helping and starts damaging.
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Irrigation and dry farming
Whether to water the vines — a technical question that has become an ideological one.
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Old vines
Why age is valued, what the mechanism might be, and why the term guarantees nothing.
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Organic viticulture
Farming without synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers.
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Pruning
Winter cutting that determines how much fruit the vine will carry.
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Rootstocks and grafting
Growing one variety's fruit on another species' roots — and what else that lets you control.
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Slope and aspect
Which way a vineyard faces and how steeply — and why the answer is the opposite in the two hemispheres.
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Soil and drainage
What soil actually does for a vine — which is mostly about water and heat, not flavour.
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Sustainable viticulture
A broader framework covering water, energy, biodiversity, packaging and people.
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The diseases that matter
Powdery and downy mildew, grey rot, trunk diseases, leafroll virus and Pierce’s disease — what each does and why it shapes where wine is grown.
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The vine
How a grapevine is built, and which parts matter for wine — roots, trunk, canopy, bunch and berry, and what each one contributes to the glass.
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Training systems
How a vine is shaped and supported, and why the answer differs by climate.
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Véraison
The moment the berry stops growing as a leaf-like organ and starts becoming fruit. Not the same as being ripe.
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Vine balance
The relationship between crop load and leaf area — the idea that actually underlies the argument about yields.
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Water stress and drought
Mild water stress is a quality tool. Severe water stress shuts the vine down. The difference is a matter of degree and timing.
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Yields
How much fruit a vineyard produces, and its genuinely complicated relationship with quality.
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Cover crops and vineyard biodiversity
What grows between the rows, and why it is no longer considered a weed problem.
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Hail
Localised, unpredictable, and capable of removing a year’s crop in ten minutes.
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Latitude and day length
Latitude governs season length and daylight hours as well as temperature — which is why the "wine belt" is a weak rule.
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Regenerative viticulture
Soil-first farming with a genuine evidence base for some claims and considerably weaker support for others.
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The pests that matter
Phylloxera, grape berry moths, mealybugs, nematodes, birds and mammals — informational, not a spray programme.