Liar, liar, pants on fire!

I fibbed.  I said I wasn't going to bore anyone with yet another picture of bloom, but it's just such a fascinating time out in the vineyard that I couldn't help myself.  So, sue me!
Vinoland's Syrah vines are about 10% into bloom, not much I know, but it's a start.  Unfortunately, it rained today.  Not a lot, but three rather heavy cloudburst-like showers which were enough to send the Vinodogs and me running for cover in the barn each time. Vinomaker had just sprayed the vines with sulphur on Wednesday morning, so this rain event was particularly badly timed.
I hope this vintage is not going to be like 2011: a vintage in which Mother Nature roundly reminded the Napa Valley's winegrowers, by way of delivering rainy weather through to the very end of June, just who is boss.  Natural crop control at it's finest?

Sunny Sunday.

And indeed it was a lovely, sunny Sunday in Vinoland (until around 6.30 pm when the annular solar eclipse made the light quality very weird).

I spent the majority of the weekend stuffing shoots and suckering the trunks of the Cabernet sauvignon vines. It's a bit of a boring vineyard operation, but the Vinodogs generally keep me company and amused. After breakfast I took a walk through the Pinot grigio block and noticed that bloom has begun.  So, I went and checked the Orange muscat vines, but nothing is happening with them yet. Not wanting to bore anyone with yet another photograph of a grape flower, I decided instead to use an image of a Yellow Mariposa Lily (Calochortus luteus) that I spotted, blooming above the vines, as I ambled about Vinoland.  I also found a couple of other wildflowers that I am fond of - fodder for future posts methinks.