Each year starts off with good intentions and January always seems like a blur between lists of what happened in the previous year and predications for the year that just began. This year the alcohol industry also received a lot of interest because of the Surgeon General’s warning about links between consumption and cancer, because of the plethora of campaigns against alcohol coming from various corners and for different reasons. All of that paired with a slew of changes in the government, threats of tariffs made real just these past few days, and fears of what the next years will look like has not made January a relaxing time of renewal, at least for me. I hope that February will be the start of a new periond of time, we just celebrated Lunar New Year and had a few family celebrations as well.

February will also be a time of change as the weather may get a bit warmer, the days are getting longer, and the sun is shining more brightly in the sky and is higher in the sky than it was during the winter solstice in December.

In the vineyard, in February, in addition to continued pruning and planning for the current year and years to come, work is done maintaining fences and poles, trellises and other supports for the grapevine. Work is also being done to fertilized the soils and the vines. Work is done to increase and improve the soils and the micro-elements found there. The methods used depend on the adherence or not to organic or biodynamic protocols. While everything seems quiet in the vineyard, a lot is happening underground as the vines get ready for the next season, similar to what we are all going through, I believe.