Our most important work in the vineyards is pruning. We prune in late winter, just before the buds burst. We thin in April and May; after all of the shoots have pushed and the danger of frost is past. Shoot-thinning is like honing a blade, removing burrs. In a healthy vineyard, inclined toward balance, pruning creates the shape and structure; thinning merely hones it. When we approach a vineyard for thinning, and it already looks good, and it is easy to see our path, it is rewarding. It means that we have pruned well.

Guman required much more thinning in 2010 than it did in 2009: this is a sign of two related facts. The vineyard is healthier this year than it has been for several years—the vines have the strength to push more shoots than we had left buds. The vines always find their own path: on the strong vines, we sometimes found two shoots from a single bud; sometimes buds that were indiscernible in March had pushed shoots in May. This in turn reveals to us that we had left too few buds at pruning and might possibly have chosen a better shape and structure for the vine. We learn with each year, each cycle.