Most of the east coast is blanketed in snow today.  Meanwhile, we finally got our southern California sunshine back — just in time to prune the syrah vines at Live Oak Vineyard. Mike Hoffman gave us a short tutorial on pruning for his vineyard; he already cut off the bulk of the canes, so we just had to go through and make sure the shoots off of the main cordon were spaced right, then trim each shoot so that there were 2 buds per spur and one shoot at each site, like so:

It was a completely beautiful, sunny, warm day, perfect for pruning.  There were 4 of us total, and we finished in just over an hour.

We celebrated our pruning success with some wine tasting and snacks.  We tasted Mike’s 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon as well as Primitivo from Temecula.  Two very different wines, but great in their own way.  The Cab was very fruit-forward and elegant, whereas the Primitivo hit you with aromas of milk chocolate and flavors of ripe red fruit and cola — definitely a great summer barbecue wine.  I also brought a little sample of the syrah that we picked last fall; when I recently tasted it, I thought it was a little syrupy and harsh.  I took the sample out yesterday, so it got O2 exposure overnight; this seemed to make all the difference!  It was very smooth, big, jammy, fruit-forward flavors with good pepper and spice.  Very yummy!  It will be great, but needs some time to mature.  But, most big reds do!