A Vine Buds in Burgundy

by Max Goldberg Liu
March 30, 2021

As the warming weather here in New York heralds the end of the winter months, so too do the Burgundians see their vines waking from their winter slumber. The first sign of life in the vineyards is the movement of the sap, which Mongeard-Mugneret so poetically calls “the first tears of the vine.”

While not exactly the same, obviously, we can think of the sap as analogous to the vine’s “blood”, with the two types of the plant’s transport tissue, xylem and phloem, being like veins, arteries, and other vascular systems. (One type of xylem, incidentally, is what we know as “wood”) In the winter months, the vine stores nutrients and starch in its roots. When it senses the soil warming, the vine will begin to push sap up from the roots, expelling any air bubbles from the system from areas where it has been pruned and ensuring healthy nutrition for the coming vegetation and buds.

The buds emerging is another milestone in the vine’s life cycle, but is often a cause for stress as the young fragile buds are particularly susceptible to frost. Paradoxically, it is not the cold itself that damages them, but rather the heat of the sun which is magnified by ice crystals and burns the vegetation. The scenes in recent years of acres upon acres of vines lit by tens of thousands of candles by night to keep the temperature above freezing, followed by the smoky haze of tons of straw being burned at dawn to obscure the sun’s rays should the vineyards frost anyway, are a grim reminder of the perils the vine faces every year. Hats off to their caretakers for their diligent and tireless work and fingers crossed that vintage 2021 is an uneventful one!