Ten thousand saw I at a glance.

I don't really know if my guesstimate of the number of young Chardonnay vines waiting to be planted at the Berlenbach vineyard is correct, but let me just say that it certainly looks like there are 10,000 vines.  Of course, if I new how many acres are being replanted it would help with my calculations.
What I do know is that the folks at Far Niente have selected Chardonnay FPS 72 (on 3309 Courderc rootstock), a clone of Chardonnay that was donated to the FPS public selection at UC Davis by the Wente family (from a production block in the Arroyo Seco AVA, Monterey County).  I know this because I am nosey and I looked.  In fact, I gazed - and gazed, tee-hee.

Foregiveness is the vine.

There is not a lot going on in the vineyard right now, just the usual bits and bobs; wayward shoots to stuff, young vines to train and adventitious growth to nip in the bud. 
I still have some replanting to do, however.  A week ago, I drove over to Novavine, a grapevine nursery in Sonoma, to pick up some green-growing Cabernet Sauvignon (clone 337) bench grafts, but I've been a bit too busy to do anything with them.  And now it is forecast to be 100°F, or higher, for the next few days - not exactly ideal planting temperatures.  But in they must go.
Overall, I am happy with the growing season thus far.  Fruit set in all four of Vinoland's grape varieties looks good.  I'm a little surprised at how advanced the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes are, despite my almost calamitous timing as to exactly when to begin pruning this year.  Apparently the vines have forgiven me.

Quarantine!

Quarantine - a word deserving of an exclamation point! 
No, it isn't me that needs quarantining.  I haven't got a case of galloping payaka, or anything for that matter.  The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is not interested in any ailment I may have contracted.  No, they are primarily concerned with the baby grapevines I just had delivered and whether such delivery harbours any plant or animal pests and diseases.  The CDFA uses quarantines to prevent unwanted heebie-jeebies from entering the state and also to prevent subsequent infestations within the state from spreading to new areas.  The Federal Government has already approved my resident-alien status, so the pests the CDFA are interested in are not of Liverpudlian origin.
The CDFA's quarantine guidelines are amongst some of the world's most stringent.  A measure of their effectiveness is that a large number of pests that have gained a foothold elsewhere have not established themselves in California; including the Colorado Potato Beetle, the Golden Nematode, the European Grapevine Moth and various (and sundry) exotic fruit flies.  To the grape-grower, the restrictive nature of the imposed quarantines can constitute major impediments to the general flow of viticulture.  Indeed, pests have helped define viticultural practices and vineyard management in this part of the globe.  To the government imposing them, the quarantines are the first line of defense against potentially devastating infestations of unwanted pests.  Let's face it, with the global nature of today's wine industry, (no more suitcase-clones, please), it would be all to easy, if there wasn't such an agricultural-watchdog as the CDFA,  to reek a pestilence-like havoc on unsuspecting California vineyard owners.  An old fashioned vineyard nemesis like phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae) would be the least of California's problems.
People laugh when I tell them Great Britain is rabies free.  "How quaint," they quip.
Quarantines work!!!

Interloper.

One of these things is not like the others.  Not that I'm a control freak, but the problem with bench grafts is that this kind of thing can happen:  a white amongst the almost-whites.  If I had been responsible for the grafting of scion to root stock, when Vinomaker and I decided to increase our Pinot grigio block, this type of thing wouldn't have happened.  I want my money back.

The hills have vines.

What is this? Some barren moonscape? Evidence of crazed, hill building moles with a knack for synchronicity? No, it is just the extension of our Pinot gris block here in Vinoland.
The little bench grafts are stretching out their roots, taking up nutrients and water, and reaching upwards, through the mounded soil, to the awaiting California sun. I'll be there to greet them when they make their entrance into the world.

Hard graft!

Finally, all the new Pinot gris bench grafts are in. It's been a long, tiring, often frustrating process, especially for Vinomaker who did the majority of the work, (I am competent with a shovel, but more impressive in a supervisory capacity.)
We chose to use bench grafts over field budding, simply to ensure a better percentage of successful adult vines. Our Cabernet sauvignon and Syrah were all field budded (and the majority of our existing Pinot gris), and they are happy healthy vines...we just wanted this block of new plantings up and running the first time around. We had a 100% take with our Orange muscat block, so we were encouraged to go the bench graft route once more.
Bench grafts are a more expensive approach to establishing a vineyard: there is a lot of work done in the nursery to produce a graft that is alive and calloused fast to the rootstock. You can see the callous around the graft in the picture with the nascent Pinot gris buds above. Doesn't look like much does it? However, in 4 years time it will be a tasty glass of chilled white wine enjoyed on a warm, sunny Napa summer day.