The vineyard is exploding with growth. Little shoots that started out timid in the cool spring nights are beginning to push a foot or two of growth every week. If I take even a couple days off from walking the rows, it feels like nobody's touched them in weeks. The growth is that violent. The grape clusters are still tight and small. The vines are pouring energy into canopy right now, building the shade and food source the fruit will need later. My main task right now is selecting which new growth to train up. After a few years without hard freezes taking out established canes, we're being more selective about what we train up this year. Still, we try to get at least one strong new shoot up to the wire every year. You never know when a hard freeze is coming to knock old vines back. Once those are tied up, we'll aggressively cut out the sucker vines coming up from the roots, pushing the vine to focus on canopy and fruit. This battle never really ends.