MALTA: New vintage beginnings

Like the art of origami, winter pruning in the vineyard is a long, laborious practice: each snip of the secateurs as deliberate and precise as a paper fold, each cut as dedicated as the next to the creation of an amazing three-dimensional sculpture of a perfectly manicured vine. After midwinter, when the Maltese weather turns colder, grape growers are to manually trim back last year’s woody canes, making sure to pay careful attention to the equilibrium and harmony of each knobby vine foot.