Winter pruning is not an annual fresh start. Every cut determines which shoots the vine will carry next year – and, at the same time, how its trunk and perennial wood will continue to grow. A mistake can often be corrected; a pruning practice repeated over years, however, can permanently shape the vine and the position of its wounds.
A foundation course run by the Simonit & Sirch pruning school is scheduled for 12 and 13 November 2026 on the campus of Hochschule Geisenheim University. It covers Guyot training – a system in which a one-year-old fruiting cane is tied to the wire and a short renewal spur is retained for the following year – from young vineyards to the conversion of older plantings. According to the course description, theory and practical work are intended to demonstrate the consequences of different pruning cuts.
More than counting buds
Winter pruning initially focuses on the coming year’s harvest: how many buds will remain, and where will the fruiting canes be positioned? Yet a vine is more than its annual cane. Its trunk and permanent arms form a framework that is developed year after year. Repeatedly making large cuts into old wood or positioning renewal growth poorly alters this framework – and creates wounds.
The Simonit & Sirch method is taught as “gentle vine pruning”. Its core principles include a clear branching structure, smaller cuts in young wood and as continuous a route as possible for sap flow. These are, first and foremost, the rules of a particular school of pruning, not a guarantee of a long life for the vine. Whether a vine remains healthy also depends on variety, site, weather, planting material and care.
Wounds are potential entry points
Grapevine trunk diseases are caused by various fungi. They can enter the wood through pruning wounds and cause damage to the trunk, arms or fruiting canes. A review by researchers at the University of California, Davis, describes pruning wounds as important infection sites; however, the findings summarised there relate largely to Californian conditions. The timing and protection of wounds can play a part, but this does not mean that any single pruning method has the same effect everywhere.
The term “gentle” should therefore not be confused with “disease-free”. Small wounds may reduce the area vulnerable to infection; they eliminate neither existing infections nor other causes of vine death. And necessary remedial work on diseased or dead parts may require larger cuts. Technical guidance from Oregon State University treats the protection of pruning wounds as a management issue in its own right – an indication that pruning practice and disease prevention belong together, but are not the same thing.
Knowledge that stays with the business
For pruning decisions to remain understandable over the years, more than a pruning pattern needs to be passed on. Staff need a shared understanding of which wood to retain, where to encourage renewal and why a cut is made at a particular point. Practical exercises on vines of different ages can make these decisions clear. A course is no substitute for experience in one’s own vineyard: the Guyot training system, grape variety, vigour and condition of the vine all help determine what makes sense.
Systematic records could document how a vineyard has been trained, where older wounds are located and which areas are being renewed. The available sources do not allow general conclusions about whether, or to what extent, growers keep such records. Nor is there an independent long-term comparison here demonstrating that a particular method generally extends the lifespan of vines.
The conclusion that can be supported is more modest, but important in practice: winter pruning does not merely shape the vine for the next harvest. It also sets the starting point for the following year’s pruning. Explaining decisions, passing them on and reviewing them when necessary turns a practised movement into a considered act of vineyard management.
Original reviewed by the editors · 6 November 2026
