If on your dinner table you find yourself tasting grapes and wines with a unique flavour, it could be most probably due to the various activities that vines receive during pruning. These plants , compared to other fruit trees , need specific pruning, a very different method from the ones used for other plants. In vine pruning cuts are mainly used, but branches and shoots are also moved and manipulated to give a define shape to the entire wine plantation . It is definitely the plant shape, combined with the grape variety, climate and soil, that will determine the correct procedure and timing of the actual vine pruning . Vine pruning has specific aims: to improve production and vegetation. Pruning grapes aids in keeping the shape and architecture of the vine, sets the ultimate crop load for the season and encourages fruit formation for the following season. Furthermore will guarantee a good quality of the fruits , their dimensions, colour and flavour. For each spur, the grower has to decide which cane he or she will keep and then prune down to one, two, or even three buds. For weak spur positions, only one bud will be retained for that season. A healthy cane, often around pencil size in diameter, can support two buds. If done properly, the following season the new canes will be pruned to two buds The winter pruning determines significantly how much fruit the vine will produce in the following season and will also determine the year in which the bunches will grow. The pruning cuts can vary depending on the implant shape. Grapevines are rigorously pruned every year when the vine is completely leafless. The ideal time is January or February. IN the first years, pruning is done exclusively for training purposes and it is advisable to prune towards the end of the winter. During this process, a main framework with side shoot positions is developed, whereby the shoots are pruned in the same way every year. Generally the wine maker starts pruning at the beginning of the second year and at the beginning of the third year. Different cuts will depend on the implant shape or vigour of the vine vegetation.