Field Notes

After the long stillness of winter, the first buds have appeared on the Montepulciano vines. It happens quietly — one morning you walk the rows and suddenly the wood that looked dead is pushing green. Small, hesitant, certain.

This is the moment that asks everything of you. The next few weeks will determine much of what the harvest becomes. We watch the sky carefully.

Pruning is not a violent act. It is a conversation. You study the vine — where it wants to go, what it remembers from last year — and you respond. You remove what would take energy without giving it back.

Some farmers rush this. We don't. Every cut is a choice that lives in the wine for years. The vine remembers.