Es fines de julio en el viñedo Villa Alegre y nos encontramos en plena época de poda, proceso que se realiza manualmente y cuyo fin es regular la futura producción.

The chief winemaker of Palo Alto, Héctor (Tito) Urzúa, tells us how this winter 2021 has been in the Maule Valley and what processes the vineyards are undergoing during this time. 

Héctor says that it has been a winter with a very cold month of July, with little rain, and that he visualizes it will be a year with a level of precipitation below normal. “However, the fact that the Maule Valley has a high influence from the Andes Mountain Range and that we are close to the Coastal Mountain Range -which is low here, allowing marine influence to enter-, helps us a lot to lessen the effect of years of less water, which is precisely what we are experiencing”, explains the winemaker, and adds: “in turn, the clay soils of our vineyards retain moisture better, which also helps us. So I am confident that all this will allow us to have a good year.”

Pruning is the first agricultural work of the year in the vineyards and is the first grape load regulation. This, says Tito, is especially relevant in years when the vines will be subject to greater water stress, allowing for sustainable production over time.

In varieties such as Cabernet Savignon and Carmenere, there has been a tendency to carry out pruning with “chargers”, that is, keeping some shoots on the vines, and not cutting them all, as is done in the more classic pruning. “In this way, the vines maintain a more balanced vigor and better defend themselves against wood disease. It is a very virtuous form of pruning,” he says.