Getting lighter.

Up a little earlier than is the norm, to deal with the chicklets who have been evicted from the house because they were starting to get a bit whiffy, I saw that Far Niente (FN) were harvesting Chardonnay from the Berlenbach Vineyards.  The morning was dark; the air was cool, foggy and smoky.  It was pleasing to me to witness some floodlit grape-activity in the neighbourhood.  A touch of normality.
I can't remember if they picked this vineyard last year (I missed the entire 2019 harvest in Napa), so this may be the first harvest for these young vines.  Generally, harvest in the valley began a tad early this year, as it has been a nice, steady growing season.  I'm wondering if FN decided to get the fruit in a little earlier because of smoke from the wildfires still burning a little to the north.  I heard that a Merlot vineyard, halfway up the valley on the eastern side, was picked on Monday at 21/22 °Brix.  Seems a little premature, but perhaps the owners/growers panicked a bit.  Stay calm folks, there will be light at the end of 2020.

Fava beans and Chardonnay.

This is not a post about a food and wine pairing.  No, it is a post about the incessant rain that northern California is experiencing and the fact that I don't like it.  However, a neighbouring vineyard's cover crop is enjoying it immensely.  Every cloud has a silver lining, or something like that.

A mechanical-mess.

This past week saw the harvest of a neighbourhood Chardonnay vineyard (one half of the vineyard was harvested just last night).  It's about time something got picked around here; it has been such a cool growing season.
I noticed this year that the trunks of the vines got rather beaten up by the whole process.  The harvester looked like a brand spanking new model from Pellenc, a French company.  Perhaps there are just some teething troubles with working with new technology.  Mechanical-harvesting is the way of the future, so I just hope the vines can survive the abuse.

Fire and water.

My grandmother was oft heard quoting Aesop, "...fire and water, they are good servants but bad masters."  Even as a small child I got the gist of what she was saying.  However, growing up in Liverpool, I didn't think I was in imminent danger of burning up, or being washed away.  Fire is mostly great; a cozy wood burning stove, a candlelit dinner, toasting s'mores round a fire-pit.  Better still, chestnuts.  Good servant stuff.  What could possibly go wrong?  Well, now I live in tinderbox dry California and wildfires happen.  The bad master stuff.
One week ago, I was going about life in a normal manner, e.g., picking Cabernet franc.  Exactly one week later things are not quite normal.  In fact, I'd go as far as to say they are abnormal.  I went to bed last Sunday night ignorant to the fact that there was a wildfire raging just a few miles from here.  Without going into detail, except to say that what ensued was quite dramatic, at 3.45 a.m Monday morning Vinomaker and I had to quickly evacuate Vinoland.  I grabbed Vinodog 2, my passport, my green card, my wedding ring, my rosary beads (from the Vatican) and my purse - and I was gone! We returned about 7 hours later.  Everything just as we'd left it, but now covered in a grey and black layer of ash.
Six days later, we still have no power, but thank God we have everything else.  In an area just about 3 miles from Vinoland, an entire street is gone.  I don't have that voyeur-bone in my body that some folks have.  People suffering horrible loses are not there for my entertainment.  I would want to grieve the loss of a home, a pet, or all of my possessions in private.  Yes, I'm curious, but this cat doesn't have nine lives.  I'll survive without witnessing, first hand, the misery of others.
Speaking with neighbours who have been in this area since the early 60s, I have learned that wildfires ravage this area about once every 20 years.  One neighbour recalled for me the calamitous fire of 1964, the year he moved to Coombsville.  And an even more destructive conflagration in 1981.  So, it seems, we were overdue.  Everything in life is cyclical and that includes wildfires.  It's just that now there are more people and homes in the way of Mother Nature (when she takes it upon herself to do a little housekeeping).  And vineyards.
Last winters heavy rains only exacerbated the intensity of these wildfires, as there is plenty of fuel to keep them stoked.  The charred hillside, from where I took this photograph, is now mostly clear of brush and shrubs, a lot of the larger trees are blackened but still standing.  Just like the neighbourhood itself: a little singed, but mostly unscathed.  I wish I could say the same for all Napans.  Fuel for thought.

The future is mechanical.

As I've said before, I am not a fan of the mechanical method of harvesting grapes; the vines get beat up, the rachis is left behind along with a lot of grapes/raisins (all of which could become inoculum for, e.g., Black Rot) and all that shaking gathers up anything else that may be hanging around in the canopy.  (I noticed that one of Napa County's pest-traps was a casualty of mechanical harvesting in my neighbour's vineyard - it was ripped into shreds.)  However, the local bird population is ecstatic. They probably cannot believe their good fortune in the discovery that someone prepared a giant fruit salad for their delectation.
Ultimately, with labour costs rising at a rate that is not sustainable, in the near-future the mechanical harvesting of grapes will be de rigueur in the vineyards of the Napa Valley. Rumour has it that, in one or two years from now, when TWWIAGE starts to replant certain blocks of their vineyard the vines will be trained harvester-friendly, i.e., bilateral cordons. Machines don't make demands.
On a happier note, I worked in the Cabernet Sauvignon vines for a little while this afternoon - checking for any second crop I may have missed, taming errant shoots and assessing the leaf-pulling situation.  And I took a grape sample to see how sugar accumulation is progressing.  Not bad, at 23 °Brix the fruit tastes lovely and sweet, the seeds are browning nicely and the crop seems to be of average size.  I'd better sharpen my picking knife.

Far from finished.

This time of year, harvest time, The Napa Valley Register includes in its weekly 'On Wine' section an additional feature: a harvest report.  The harvest report details harvest goings-on in the entire Napa Valley American Viticultural Area (AVA); including all 16 sub-AVAs from Carneros to Calistoga.  Being a vine-geek I love to read it, especially since the Coombsville AVA has been in the mix since harvest of 2012. TWWIAGE's winemaker is a frequent contributor for the Oakville AVA. I had always assumed the reports were accurate, however there was a bit of an oversight in this week's dispatch.
Reporting on week 3, a local Coombsville vintner (who shall remain nameless) was quoted thus: "All the whites are off in our neighborhood..." Really?  Well, his white grapes might have already been harvested, as have Vinoland's, but just several hundred yards from his vineyard is another, rather sizable vineyard with a not insignificant crop of Chardonnay - that's still hanging.  Can't miss it. Titter, titter.
The past two days, the folks at Far Niente have been busy preparing to pick their Chardonnay. And tonight seems to be the night.  Well, it'll be overnight, Monday morning, actually.  I'll probably hear the picking crew and their tractors in the early hours.  And tomorrow, when I leave for work, I'll see that the fruit has been harvested.  Only then, perhaps, will the neighbourhood be devoid of white grapes.
I shouldn't believe everything I read.  I usually don't.  Ho Hum.

Toe of frog.

The American Bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) is an invasive species in California.  Native to the southern and eastern United States, Mr. B. Frog, although he may not belong here, appears to be quite happy in his adopted irrigation-runoff-drainage-pipe habitat.  In fact, he seems to have quite a secure foothold in his aqueous abode which overlooks the Far Niente Chardonnay vineyard.  My BF has been in residence since the winter and shows no intention of moving on to greener pastures: they'd be far too dry.  Perhaps someone should tell him that he is persona non grata in The Golden State.  Not me, I quite enjoy his presence.  I just hope my neighbour's irrigation system keeps this little guy in the liquid-lifestyle he has grown accustomed to.

A Shrovetide sunset.

It hasn't rained in almost a week, yay!  Since last Thursday it has been frosty every morning and sunny every afternoon - my favourite type of winter weather.  Consequently, pruning has resumed in the valley: the east side of the local Far Niente Chardonnay vineyard was pruned today.
Vinodog 2 and I had a lovely walk after I got home from work, enjoying the rich hues that the setting sun cast over Mt. George and the eastern hills.  Then it was home for dinner and pancakes, yum!

Cindy's.

I'm stuffed!
Whilst the Far Niente vineyard crew were pre-pruning their neighbourhood, Coombsville vineyard this morning (a little later than is usual for them, but then we have been having a lot of rain lately), I was getting ready to go to a luncheon with all my female co-workers...and TWWIAGE's controller who absolutely insists on treating all the girls to a nice lunch every Christmas.  It is difficult for me to eat, and drink, so much at lunch, but it is hard not to when one dines at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen in St. Helena.  I now feel like a sloth, but a bit of work outside this afternoon will hopefully prepare me for my second round of festiveness this evening (also TWWIAGE related).  It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

Bank Holiday Monday.

It's Easter Monday.  Well, it is Easter Monday, a bank holiday, in England (and Canada).  When I was little everywhere (shops, post office etc., and the banks, of course) basically shut down for the entire four days of Easter.  Easter was a time for family get-togethers.  I find 'holidays' in America are over way too fast.  It is certainly not a holiday for me today, as I am off to work in just a while.
A sort of Easter miracle happened in Vinoland yesterday: I finished pruning, yay!  (And tying everything down with help from Vinomaker.) And not a moment too soon, the Cabernet sauvignon vines are enthused. I was getting a little worried that I wouldn't be finished, but the weather was perfect for pruning.  It feels good to be finished.  I even managed to get a little bit of suckering done in the Pinot grigio because, as usual with this grape variety, the vigorous little devils have pushed a myriad of adventitious buds out all over their trunks.
Of course, with warm weather and clear skies comes the threat of spring frosts.  Indeed, as I type the fans (for frost protection) in the nearby Far Niente Chardonnay vineyard are doing their thing.  A precautionary step, perhaps, as the temperature is currently 39°F and too warm for frost.  I have done my bit, having no frost protection in Vinoland my little buddies are now on their own.

Orange you glad it's budbreak?

It was a busy day in the neighbourhood, well, this morning at least, then rain stopped play. And it rained hard all afternoon.  I did not manage to get anything pruned today and the forecast for the weekend is less than favourable for that particular vineyard activity.
The Far Niente vineyard crew have been pruning up a storm since Monday and thankfully, for them, it looks like they finished early this afternoon.  Interestingly, they did not pre-prune (aka double pruning or delayed pruning) this year, instead they pruned all the way down to two bud spurs to finish the job.  Probably the reason why they have been pruning in the one vineyard all week.
The general viticultural-consensus has it that pre-pruning can help stave off infection from Eutypa lata, a fungal disease of the grapevine. This year, the vineyard manager at TWWIAGE has also decided to forego pre-pruning in favour of a quick application of a fungicide, at pruning, that will hopefully prevent new infection in spurs and cordons.
It did stay dry long enough this morning for me to notice that budbreak has well and truly begun in the Orange Muscat vines (slightly later than last year), and bud swell in the Pinot grigio.  I need to get my skates on. Or, perhaps, a pair of water skis.

Sweetly doing nothing, or a lot.

Yesterday, I spent almost 2 ½ hours running errands for the owners of TWWIAGE.  I am not complaining, whilst I was out and about, I got to visit some of the most iconic, and prettiest, wineries in the entire Napa Valley.  And high on the pretty-o-meter is the driveway leading to the Far Niente Winery.
The driveway, that wends its way up to the gates of the Far Niente grounds, is impressively lined with more than one hundred Ginkgo biloba trees which look good not only in the summer months, but are very striking even now in the winter. Well done, Far Niente, well done.

Time machines.

Grapes are coming in at a frenetic pace all over the Napa Valley.  The 2015 harvest is proving to be a very early vintage.
At TWWIAGE the Chardonnay harvest is already complete.  On Monday the first Cabernet Sauvignon (CS) reserve grapes (clone 15) were picked. September 7th is a very early date on which to have already started to bring in CS, considering that in the relatively cool growing season of 2011 that TWWIAGE did not finish harvesting CS grapes until November 4th.  On Tuesday TWWIAGE picked both Merlot and Sauvignon blanc - the first time ever that red and white grapes had been brought in on the same day.
Even here in chilly Coombsville (remember, Vinomaker calls it The Tundra), Far Niente have already picked their vineyard that is closest to Vinoland: the eastern block was harvested in the early hours of Monday morning and the western block in the early hours of Tuesday morning. It looks like the vineyard manager at Far Niente opted to once again hand-harvest their Chardonnay grapes.  Last year (photographed on September 19th 2014) the western block was machine-harvested which, at the time, I surmised might have been an experiment of a sort.
Machine harvesting is very efficient, as it can save a lot of time and it can be very economical (less payroll).  However, machine-harvesting is very tough on the grapevine and, in my opinion, can cause more trouble than it's worth. Machine-harvesters pick every grape off the vine; they also harvest small rodents, old bird nests, little snakes, lounging lizards, curled up caterpillars, etc., etc.  (Not just earwigs, Thud.) Collectively known as MOG, material other than grapes, all that detritus has to be sorted out from the grapes before the fruit is fit to be turned into wine. Not to mention that, because the berries are more roughly handled, there is more rupturing and subsequent juicing which can be a big problem with white grapes (think, oxidation).  And leaving the rachis on the vine can promote grapevine diseases like a possible early season Black Rot (Guignardia bidwellii) infection.  I could go on, but I won't because I don't have that much time before Vinoland's grapes are ready for harvest.

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.

Bye-bye, Berlenbach Vineyards.

The end of an era.  Today, Far Niente Winery, who lease quite a bit of land in the Coombsville AVA, bulldozed out the aged Chardonnay vines at Berlenbach Vineyards.  (This is the vineyard that UC Davis were not interested in owning.)  I climbed up to the top of Vinoland and watched as a Caterpillar D6 uprooted the vines and pushed them into huge, gnarled heaps.  Always sad to see.
Later in the afternoon, when the dust had all settled, Vinodog 2 and I took a stroll up to the vineyard to have a peep at what was going on.  It's a fabulous site, the soil seems to be of great quality - a gravelly loam (no tuff, like Vinoland), with wonderful western sun exposure.  Far Niente have already had the new Chardonnay vines delivered for the replanting.  In a fenced enclosure, with shade cloth for roofing, I'd estimate that 10,000+ green-growing bench-grafts await their moment in the sun.  Vinodog 2 and I introduced ourselves - after all, we will soon be watching their development, from Vinoland, on a daily basis.

Nativity in the vineyard.

Not much to say really.  This photograph says it all; nativity scene, a Napa vineyard, Christmas Eve.
Thank you to a neighbour for their effort in ensuring that Christmas-walkies are very special for me and Vinodog 2.
Happy Christmas Eve to all!

Winter Solstice, 2014.

As the sun was beginning to set today, I made my way almost to the top of Vinoland with Vinodog 2 to admire the view.  Of course a few trees got in the way but not one, solitary raincloud spoilt the vineyard-vista.  No, today I finally got to see the sun for the first time in what seems like ages.  And how appropriate that the sun reappeared for a little while on the shortest day of the year, (although I did feel like I was being rationed).
Funny story about the vineyard in the middle of the photograph (not that funny, actually).  The gentleman who owned this vineyard passed away last year and in his will he had bequeathed the vineyard to the UC Davis Viticulture & Enology Department.  But UC Davis didn't want it, they wanted cash instead.  Apparently, contrary to what a familiar proverbial phrase claims, beggars can be choosers.  The gentleman's widow is instead leasing the vineyard to Far Niente.
Happy winter solstice, enjoy, be happy...for tomorrow it starts to stay lighter, later.
Sing it Ian!

Prune away.

After a night of heavy rain, thunder and lightning  (I loved the thunder, but V2 was less than impressed), today was a beautiful day in the neighbourhood.  A beautiful day for pruning, which I did a bit of in Vinoland's Cabernet Sauvignon.  However, there were other folks besides me pruning in the neighbourhood.
My pruning wasn't nearly as productive as the vineyard crew from Far Niente, who pruned their entire Chardonnay vineyard in one go today.  And not a moment too soon: each bud, especially in the eastern block of this vineyard, was pushing - right on cue with last year.
I was thinking that budbreak was a little earlier than last year, due to our warm and dry winter.  But as I have said before, despite mankind's narcissism in believing that we control everything in the universe, the vines know what to do and when to do it.

Stripped off.

The folks at Far Niente were busy diligently leaf pulling today in preparation for their Chardonnay harvest (or at least in this vineyard).  It's a tiny bit earlier than last year, but then 2012 overall has been a more even growing season compared to that of 2011.
The beginning of this week saw temperatures in the high 90s here in Vinoland.  Today it was just 75°F, partly overcast and rather breezy - what a difference.  The cooler weather will slow the sugars down a tad in our Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah vines, but I won't have any specific data until I do a sugar sampling on Sunday.

America's most wanted moth.

The European Grapevine Moth (Lobesia botrana) has recently been found for the first time in the United States. This nasty little pest unfortunately made it's first port of call the Napa Valley; ground zero is Oakville where I work, with another isolated population having been found east of the town of Napa where I live. I can assure you this is purely coincidental.

L. botrana is an extremely serious threat to the wine industry as this particular moth does not feed on the grapevines leaves, but rather on the flower parts and inside the maturing berries. It was recently confirmed by the Napa County Agricultural Commissioner that several Napa Valley vineyards actually sustained significant crop losses last harvest. Besides natural dispersal, the movement of fruit, personnel (yikes, Vinogirl in her Vinomobile perhaps?) and machinery, coupled with the fabulous Napa Valley climate make this pest a very grave threat to other areas of the state. Large expanses of Napa County are now under quarantine.

The moth has a rather complicated life cycle comprising of 5 larval instars (the main offenders), and 3 generations of adults. Getting rid of these little fiends is going to prove to be quite difficult I'm afraid. Eradication efforts valley-wide will include; multiple applications of insecticides, the use of a bacterium (Bacillus thuringiensis) which produces a protein that acts as a stomach poison and biological controls, such as the release of tiny parasitic wasps that efficaciously oviposit the moth eggs and the dispersal of a synthetic sex pheromone so that male moths are unable to locate females.
There is a nasty little rumour going around as to how L. botrana came to be in the Napa Valley in the first place which doesn't suggest the probability that the moth was a simple stowaway. However, it is likely just that: a rumour. But isn't it at least conceivable that the French, fed up with the New World stealing it's oenological thunder, simply packed the moth's luggage for it and sent it to the Napa Valley to at long last avenge their countrymen for the American initiated phylloxera epidemic of the 1870s? Or is spending more of my time with vines than people turning me into a conspiracy theorist?