Vintage 2021: March Pruning Time

The birds are singing around 5 a.m. letting us know that spring is just around the corner. The lion of the adage, "March comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb" roared on March 2, with howling wind gusts of 50 mph! However, the very next day, the lamb made it's appearance and we've begun pruning duties in the vineyard.
Last year, we began in February, which was an unusually warm month cutting tendrils. We then did a first pass of cutting the tops of the canes. Those two activities took us into the first week of April.
This year, we are cutting tendrils, removing Agfast, cutting the wire that is holding down the cane we laid down and freeing the vine for it's final pruning. Although this pre-pruning work is taking some time, we hope that the actual pruning will be facilitated.
We began in our Auxerrois and were very happy to see that our canes are very healthy. I had to refer to the blog that I wrote in 2016 called Stages of Budbreak to get calibrated on what stage we are seeing for the Auxerrois and it looks as if the buds maybe in their "bud scale opening" phase.

Looks a bit early to me!