Genki, a Japanese intern at the domain

Hello, my name is Genki. I've been an intern here since August 2020. I’m Japanese, and the son of a winegrower in Japan. We grow table grapes there these days. I’m studying oenology and winemaking here, so that I can do the same back home. Right now we are disbudding the vines, known as "évasivage" in Burgundy. It's the removal of buds which are dead ends… This means, here where the vine has a trunk... the old wood, and a year-old cane, Here's a small nub of wood we call a spur. Normally we leave the buds growing on the cane and the spur. Because in general on the cane, and the spur, the buds will grow fruit, in this case grapes. The flowering buds grow grapes, first the flower, then the grapes. Normally we leave the buds here. and remove the buds on the trunk. Here down the side... We only leave what is growing along the axis of the row... to facilitate next year's pruning… But this year is complicated... because of the heavy April frosts, so a lot of buds were damaged, they froze and died. So we need to be careful... not to remove any buds with grapes, because already here, on this shoot here, this is called a shoot, there are two grapes, that’s really good, whereas here, it froze, here as well… In addition this wasn’t frozen but eaten by caterpillars… So in fact there's double damage: the frost, and the eaten buds. So this year's going to be very complicated on this plot here. Generally old vines, like this one, have fewer buds, that grow on the trunk. But this needs to be removed… Then here, this was frozen, but we leave the cane alone... I also try to pull out some of the weeds… Here’s where it wasn’t pruned… Usually we can remove this, but because the spur froze... we’ll maintain the sap flow here, for future growth… There's another one here underneath and it can usually be cut, but we’ll leave it for the same reason. Because it froze, the sap flow needs to be maintained in this direction. Often young ones, young plants, small young vines like these, are more likely to be frost damaged, because they are low to the ground. During the Spring freeze... the cold air stays close to the ground. so the smaller plants, are more fragile than the older ones… So here it is... It's frozen, frozen, frozen... Perhaps there's a small chance that this small bud here... Perhaps it may actually grow… or not. So I’ll pull out the weeds in the hope that it will grow… Here we’ll check the side… This here. There’s no point here... So we'll remove this... After... it’s all good.