Pruning

Today I was pruning.  We were in the Savigny-Les-Beaune 1er cru Haut Marconnets vineyard.  It is basically the same vineyard as the Beaune 1er cru Marconnets vineyard except that they stuck the A6 freeway in between, and that makes life a bit too dangerous for the vineyard workers so they gave a bit to Savigny and a bit to Beaune.  A6 apart, it's a beautiful spot, gently sloping down towards Beaune and with the oh-so-perfect hill of Corton to the East.

I think I love pruning.  To be fair I haven't been doing it every day for the last 6 weeks but given my limited exposure it strikes me as exactly the type of honest, meaningful, manual work that I dreamed of doing whilst getting paid too much money to do very little in an office in Sydney.  Whilst pruning, even when working in a team, you are alone with your secateurs and the vines.  Examing each one for the best cut, which cane will yield best next year, which is simplest to train, is the vine still healthy?  A dozen questions for each vine that are answered with three decisive cuts, one for the spur (a short cane with two buds on it), one for the fruit bearing wood (a longer cane of about 6 buds) and one big one to get rid of last year's fruit bearing wood.  It is incredibly simple, and yet, as is only too obvious after writing the last sentence, incredibly difficult to describe.  I have tried to show the 'before and after' in the above photos... I know, you have to do it and then it makes sense.

It snowed whilst we were pruning, it was wonderful, better than rain.  And whilst my knees ached from all the bending (each trunk sits about 45-60cm high) and climbing the slope I was sad when it was over.  In order to commemorate I wanted to drink a wine from that vineyard, however, all I had was a Savigny-les-Beaune 1er cru Dominode (Domaine Pavelot) which is about 400 metres to the East.  I was also keen to try another Savigny wine to see whether it would make a good pre-Xmas purchase so I opened it instead, it was a 2005 Maison Francois Martenot Savigny-Les-Beaune Le Village (Burgundy, Savigny-Les-Beaune AC - 12Euros).  Jackpot.  From a Village vineyard that nudges the main premier crus of the area this is splendid, nose is certainly marked by oak but in a comfortable way, the fruit still getting a good word in and having a good time, the palate was sublime, fine, almost silky tannins, great linear structure, plenty of juicy cherry fruit, a little oak and a decently long finish with a little cherry pit to close.  More of that please.