Too pricey?

This was a lovely wine, the proof is it's all gone.  I purchased this bottle of Quintessa's  2016, 'Illumination' Sauvignon Blanc (SB) when I visited the winery back in January.  I can't remember what I paid for it (there was a small inter-winery discount involved), but on Quintessa's website it says this wine retails for $50.00.  And by my reckoning, that's about $20.00 too much.
Wine pricing is a funny old thing.  The average consumer could be forgiven for asking, "Why is this wine priced thus?"  Well, the wine's packaging is a little upscale, it comes in a Rhone-style bottle (how trite) and there is some flashy gold on the label, but packaging alone shouldn't make a significant impact on the retail price of this wine.  The cost of SB grapes is on the rise in the Napa Valley.  In fact, SB is in danger of becoming more scarce, indeed many growers are ripping out this delightful white grape and planting Cabernet Sauvignon in its place.  Having said that, I looked up the average price per ton of SB grapes (Napa County Crop Report) when I started blogging in 2008 and it was $1,905.91.  In 2017 the average cost had risen to $2,012.00.  That's a whopping increase of $106.09 over a 10 year period.  (By no stretch of the imagination is that a significant price hike.)
Yes, I enjoyed this $50.00 SB, it was a beautiful glass of wine; a little heavier of the palate than most SBs, adequate acid, a lovely grapefruit/mandarin orange citrus-y-ness and a lingering finish.  However, I don't think I enjoyed it enough to pay full retail.
Quintessa is a pretty swanky winery, so I believe it is up to the proprietors to maintain some aura of exclusivity.  I'm thinking the folks that can afford to drink Quintessa wines are Cabernet Sauvignon aficionados who aren't necessarily white wine drinkers (I meet people like that all the time), but might be persuaded to buy an overpriced, in my humble estimation, SB.  I am not Quintessa's audience.
Call me cheap, but I'd rather have two bottles of SB from a Napa Valley producer such as Honig or St. Supéry.  Or even better, three bottles (or, perhaps, four if it's on sale) of that old Kiwi stalwart, Kim Crawford.  My little pea-brain just doesn't understand expensive SBs.  I have tasted the Illumination once, I don't need to try it again.

Slowing down.

I'm not slowing down, nor apparently is this common garden snail (Cornu aspersum) who, along with his pals, keeps popping up in the Syrah vines (not in the garden).  It is the grapevines themselves that are slowing down. The grand period of growth - a period of time when the shoots of vigorous grape varieties can elongate as much as an inch or more a day - is almost at an end.  During bloom the rapid shoot growth slows; in part due to competition for the allocation of photosynthates; in part because of hormone and enzyme activity in the flowering vine.  But also because May has been an unseasonably cool month.  The California May Grey has also retarded development a little bit, as the weather has been rather chilly and thus the vines have not been quite as enthused.

Me?  I haven't been able to slow down yet.  As quickly as the vines have been putting on vegetal growth, I've been busy tidying the over-zealous shoots by tucking them behind the trellis wires. The snail?  Well, his departure into the blackberry thicket, facilitated by me, was anything but slow.

Wine Train crossing.

On the way home from work tonight, I had to stop on Jefferson Street in order to let the Wine Train cross traffic.  It was hot and I was tired, but I didn't really mind because I'm quite fond of trains and I like seeing this particular train in action.  Besides, it was fun to see the happy, most probably inebriated, tourists hanging off the end car waving to anybody and everybody in the hopes that someone might possibly wave back.  So, I waved.

Off with their heads.

I can't spend all my time obsessing over the non-existent spring-like weather, or looking for the almost non-existent bloom...well, I could, but I shouldn't. There are other things to be done in the vineyard. So, this weekend I redirected my energy towards unearthing the rootstocks that I field-budded late last summer.

There are several simple steps to follow in performing this particular vineyard operation; carefully push away the dirt pile, unwind the grafting tape, check the bud has a good callous, whip off the rootstock's new growth, place a milk carton over the new shoot (in this case Syrah) for protection, all the time avoiding stealth-puppy-kisses from a particular, small black and white dog. Oh, and get up, brush off your knees and move on to the next vine. Easy-peasy!