Viticulture
The annual growth cycle
What happens to a vine through the year, and where the risks sit.
Overview
The vine's year is a sequence of stages, each with its own weather vulnerability. Understanding it explains why vintage variation exists at all.
Step by step
1 Winter dormancy
The vine shuts down. Pruning happens now, and it determines next year's crop size.
2 Bleeding and budburst
Sap rises, buds swell and open. From this point spring frost can destroy the crop in a single night.
3 Shoot and leaf growth
Rapid growth. The vine builds the canopy that will ripen the fruit.
4 Flowering
Small self-pollinating flowers appear. Cold or wet weather here causes poor fruit set and permanently reduces the crop.
5 Fruit set
Fertilised flowers become berries. Failures here are coulure (flowers dropping) and millerandage (uneven berry size).
6 Véraison
Berries stop growing, soften and change colour. Ripening proper begins — sugar accumulates and acidity falls.
7 Ripening
Sugar rises, acid falls, tannins and aromas develop. The grower is watching several of these mature at different rates.
8 Harvest
The picking decision — arguably the most consequential judgement of the year.
9 Leaf fall and dormancy
The vine stores carbohydrate in its roots and shuts down for winter.
Sources
Sources consulted
- UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology — University of California, Davis
- WSET educational materials and the Systematic Approach to Tasting — Wine & Spirit Education Trust
More in the vineyard
Viticulture
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.
Viticulture
Climate change and wine
Warming is already reshaping where wine is grown and what it tastes like.
Viticulture
Harvest and picking decisions
When to pick — the single most consequential decision a producer makes each year.