I'm rusty.

Yes, I am blog-rusty, but not as rusty as this chunk of tuff situated underneath a drip irrigation emitter.  Stained a curious shade of orange, from the iron present in Vinoland's well water, this fractured hunk of ash-fall tuff distracted me from the job at hand.  (For more on tuff, see here.)  I've been keeping busy stuffing shoots, thinning heads and suckering trunks.  And watching this California Harvester Ant (Pogonomyrmex californicus) bopping around under a Syrah vine, fascinating.  I'm easily distracted.  Situation, normal.

Syrah show-off.

Seven days on, the Syrah grapes are progressing through veraison quite nicely.  A bit more advanced than the rest of the Syrah, this specific vine has always been a bit of an overachiever.
One of the original vines planted in Vinoland (circa 2000), the scion (Durell clone) was grafted onto 110 Richter (berlandieri x rupestris) rootstock.  Arguably the worst rootstock for the soil type in Vinoland, tuff and clay, the 110R-grafted vines eventually failed and the Syrah block had to be replanted.  The replant, though, was to 101-14 Millardet et de Grasset (riparia x rupestris), a much more suitable rootstock. There are approximately eight vines surviving from the first planting, my little poser vine being located in a particularly poor area of soil, I mean shockingly bad. Regardless, the vine seems to have tapped into something it likes below ground and it continues to thrive.  Crazy teenager.

Tuff stuff.

A small excavation in Vinoland has revealed a friendly, neighbourhood igneous rock (everybody should have one).  Tuff, or ash-fall tuff, is extremely variable in its chemical and mineralogical composition.  Vinoland's tuff happens to be extremely light in weight and texture, but there exists some historical references (The Structural and Industrial Materials of California, Bulletin No. 38, State Mining Bureau, 1906), to a brecciated tuff, mined just a mile or so from here, that "...for many years has been used for macadamizing the streets of Napa."  Now, that's tough stuff.
Tuff is a fine grained rock composed of volcanic ash which fell upon this part of the Napa Valley millions of years ago, (vulcanism reached the valley about 7 million years ago), which later hardened into beds of tuff.  Vinoland's tuff is really light in colour (it resembles diatomaceous earth in appearance, though it is denser), includes no clasts (volcanic detritus), rubs off on your fingers like chalk and is usually high in silica. 
Tuff is only found in a small area in the south end of Vinoland, (some Syrah is planted in it, tough stuff for a grapevine to deal with).  I know that at least one of our neighbours over the hill behind Vinoland has a large amount of it, but I don't know how extensive it is in the neighbourhood as a whole.  Some folks claim that the volcanic rock in the Napa Valley is responsible for certain characteristics in the grapes and resulting wine.  However, due to the huge diversity in the types of volcanic rock deposited in the length and breadth of the valley, I am of the opinion that there is little significance you can attribute to just one specific lithology.