Summer's here!

Yay!  It's summer and Vinodog 2 has decided to don her ice cream goggles and embrace the change in season.  We haven't had much of a summer yet in the Napa Valley, but "hope springs eternal in the human breast."  Or is that, hope summers eternal...?  Just kidding.
V2 is a very happy little dog despite her often dour countenance in photographs, these silly sunglasses just serve to heighten her rosy outlook on life.  And she makes me extremely happy as she is my ever-present companion in all my viticultural adventures.  However, I hope she doesn't expect to wear those sunglasses out in the vineyard today, that would be just plain embarrassing.  I may love V2 to death, but I'm still English.  Standards, you know, old chap.
Happy summer solstice, peeps!

Meet David Brown.

Yesterday, I went for a walk down memory lane. Actually, I took Vinodog 2 for a walk along the Napa River, but on the way home I did stop off at the Napa Valley College (NVC) student vineyard to pay a quick visit to an old friend: a David Brown Selectamatic 990 tractor.  And, I must say, old DB looked quite fabulous and just like his old self.
During the time that I was studying for my A.S. in Viticulture at NVC, I cannot recall a single instance when upon bringing the old DB out for a little student hands-on instructional tractor time that Dr. Krebs did not comment to my classmates and me, "You know, the electrical system on this thing is terrible".  I didn't take it personally, being English and all.
David Brown Engineering Ltd., is an English company that was founded in 1860 by, of course, David Brown.  The first tractor produced by the company was a joint venture with Henry Ferguson (perhaps better known for Massey Ferguson tractors) in 1936.  Business boomed after World War II and the company became one of the biggest tractor manufacturers in the UK. (The company also made gears for Spitfires - so cool.)
I simply love this tractor, it is just so utilitarian and that appeals to me.  I just wish that I could have a conversation with the Selectamatic 990 and ask it a few questions like; How's your wiring harness feeling?  How did you end up in the Napa Valley?  And now that you are here, do you like the weather?  Just wondering.
Oh, and happy summer solstice!

The Italian Job.

It's a tough job, but somebody had to do it.  Just joking, it was lots of fun showing these four lads around TWWIAGE this afternoon.  Giovanni Arcari (winemaker and blogger), Jeremy Parzen (aka Do Bianchi, blogger, food and wine historian, Italian translator and rock musician), Nico Danesi and Andrea Rudelli (both Franciacorta winemakers) were a joy to host.  A quick couple of beers in downtown Napa at Norman Rose Tavern, then a really quick glass of wine in Vinoland, and they were off over to Sonoma.  Lots of fun.
Happy solstice.  Grazie e buona notte.

A rosy day.

Happy summer solstice!
I love this time of year.  I love the longer daylight hours.  I love photosynthesis, (so do the vines).  I just love light.  Although I miss the longer summer days of my youth in Liverpool, (so much further north than Napa) I'll take any daylight I can get, (so will the vines).  The longer days also allow me to walk the Vinodogs later, in the cool of the evening, which suits the aging V1 much better.
Blooming, on my daily Vinodog-walks, amongst the roadside-thicket that is composed mainly of poison oak and Himalaya blackberry, is the appropriately named Rosa canina, or Dog rose.  A wild rose - which in it's cute pinkness looks pretty enough to be tamed and cultivated in a garden - the dog rose asserts itself and thrives along roadsides, irrigation ditches and creeks.  A cheery little flower, the dog rose could only look happier if it sported a wagging tail. 
June 21st, a happy summer day, a rosy kind of day.

Codswallop!

Vinoland, my tiny corner of vineyard heaven, is a pretty healthy place. Any regular visitor to Vinsanity can probably deduce from the various posts I pen about wildflowers, weeds and creepy crawlies that the flora and fauna here are rather diverse. Of all Vinoland's cultivated ornamental plants, lavender grows particularly well and attracts copious numbers of bumble bees and honey bees.  The bees whilst not necessary for the pollination of grape-flowers are beneficial to every other flowering plant on the property.  Vinoland is certainly no monoculture.  
Sustaining the health of the vineyard, through cover-cropping and composting etc., is of the utmost importance.  In winter, when the vines are dormant, Vinomaker will apply a narrow strip of herbicide directly beneath the vines to discourage unwanted weeds from becoming a problem later in the growing season.  This means that Vinoland could not be certified organic, but is instead sustainably farmed.  However, I think this method of weed eradication is much preferred over repeatedly driving a tractor, with a French plow attached, through the vines burning diesel and compacting the vineyard soil in the process - not good.  Also, Vinoland is far from being biodynamic as I personally don't work to an astronomical timetable.
Yesterday, whilst trying to catch up on a weeks worth of Napa Valley Register articles that Vinomaker had put aside for me, I spotted this story: Purple haze - Harms Lavender Fields hosts annual open house. Well, I like lavender, and I love Jimi Hendrix, so I read on.  There is, apparently, a farm in north Napa that was originally planted all to vines, but now includes 1.5 acres of several different lavender varieties. In 1999, experiencing farming difficulties and facing possible financial ruin the owners of the land sought help from a consultant who, upon examining an offending block of vines that would not ripen, advocated biodynamic agricultural techniques as a solution. Soon after adopting biodynamics, the Virgin Mary appeared and the vineyard owner observed that  "...The vines progressed through six weeks of ripening in just 10 days."  Really?  Well actually no, I made up the viticultural-visitation bit, but I think somebody else made up the viticultural-miracle bit.  Methinks some fantastical wizardry, other than simply embracing biodynamic farming, would have to be employed to produce such sensational physiological results in any fruit bearing plant.  
Like I said, codswallop!   
Have a happy solstice everyone!