A month ago, we wrote that the vintage had begun.
The vines were still bare. The work was only just underway.
Now, across the estate, the tying is complete.
It is the kind of work that looks quiet from the outside — a crew moving slowly down each row, cane by cane, vine by vine. But tying is where the geometry of the entire growing season is decided. After pruning, each vine is left with one or two long canes. Those canes are bent, carefully, and secured horizontally along the fruiting wire. Where they arc, how far they stretch, how many buds they carry — these choices determine where every cluster of fruit will hang, five months from now.
The window for this work is narrow. Bend a cane too early, while it is still rigid from the cold, and it snaps. Bend it too late, after the buds have begun to swell, and the tender growth is lost to the work itself. The timing is different for every block. Our warmer sites — exposed, south-facing — were ready first. Our cooler blocks, still waking, finished last. The vineyard never moves as one, and it is not meant to.
What remains now is a kind of structure the eye learns to recognize over time. Long arcs of wood, evenly spaced, repeating down each row. A geometry made entirely by hand, by people who have done this work for years and know exactly how much pressure a cane will take before it gives.
From here, the season begins to move on its own. Buds will break — some already have. Shoots will push. The canopy will begin to fill in, and the vines will start to carry the shape they have been given.
At After 93, we farm for expression rather than volume. The decisions that define that expression are not made at harvest. They are made now, in April, vine by vine, with a length of twine and a steady hand.
The vintage is already taking its shape.
