Grubbing Up

grubbing up, vines is known as arrachage in France, where it became a common practice as part of the eu’s various vine pull schemes aimed at reducing the European wine lake. In the new world it is generally referred to as ripping out.

The more traditional reason for grubbing up a vineyard is that the vine age is so high and the average yield so low that the vineyard is no longer economic (although the prestige associated with old vines, or vieilles vignes, may retard this process). Weak demand for wine grapes, signalled by wineries failing to renew contracts with growers and/or continued periods of low prices, sometimes below production costs, also leads to vineyard removal.