Michaela, owner of Villa Ragazzi Winery, explains how field grafting works in her Sangiovese vineyard. When you’d like to change a vineyard from Merlot, for example, to Sangiovese, there are two options for changing varieties.
1 Replace the entire vineyard. Every year you see some vineyards being bulldozed, with all the vines and metal poles bundled up in big piles, later to be burned. The vineyard is then replanted from scratch.
2. Graft a new scion onto the existing vines, called field grafting. This is where you chop the top off of each vine and graft new scions onto the top. The scion is the upper part of the vine, consisting of the canes and buds that produce the grapes. You take clippings from existing vines to get scions.
Vineyard replacement is more expensive than field grafting due to the materials, labor, and time required to reach full production. Field grafting is advantageous with usable grapes the following harvest, though it is common for some of the grafts to not work successfully.
