At the end of the winter, many hours of work are dedicated to cutting and removing the shoots of the vines that haven’t been chosen in the selection of the single fruiting cane provided for in the guyot, and which are firmly anchored with their tendrils. These shoots are excluded from the future of the vine as bearers of new fruit, but they remain as crop residue on the ground and become fertilizer when they are shredded in the rows and then decompose over time. Alternatively, they might contribute to the life of the farmer when they become firewood for heat or to keep warm the wood-burning oven where bread is still baked once a week. Other branches might be chosen for the creation of rooted cuttings, of new vines, that are born from a mass selection made directly in the field. This selection requires a careful observation by the farmer of the behavior of his vines over time, the presence of human awareness and sensitivity.

Here there could be a generic photo of a bundle of sticks, without a company representative.

In order to remove the shoots, you first need to remove the cords that allowed the shoots to be trained at the beginning of the summer, accompanying them in their vertical growth.

There are those who get in the rhythm of pruning and shoot-thinning at the same time, while others concentrate on trimming without distraction, and leave the shoot-thinning for later. The important thing when removing the shoots is to not keep the cuttings if you don’t want to pull down the threads or break the ties with the posts. Even a job this simple has a right way to do it.

Not everyone likes the idea of shredding and leaving the trimmed wood in the floor; the transformation into organic substance by microorganisms can be a long and tiring process – a kind of digestion. Some producers, therefore, prefer to take the branches away from the rows instead of shredding them, when they can.

Making firewood for baking bread is an exercise in patience. The shoots can not be cut randomly, but must make a neat bundle that can be inserted inside the narrow opening of the oven. After having collected the branches of the vines, the bundle is tied with a thick wicker, unusable in the tying of the rows, that keeps the branches together and burns in the oven with the wood.

Still, the method used by almost all of the winemakers remains shredding. Some producers consider it an enrichment of the soil, while others prefer a shredder with a tank that collects the wood chips and brings them to the end of the row where they can then be burned.