Bob's your uncle.

A wonderful wine with dinner tonight.  Hmm, I can't exactly remember when I bought this Robert Sinskey Vineyards, 2013 Pinot Gris (Los Carneros AVA), but I'm really glad that I did.
Paired with shrimp for dinner, this wine was just gorgeous.  A light, light brass colour, the nose was filled with a rich honeyed-butterscotchy, orange blossomy, limey-ness.  (I don't believe any of those in reality are legal wine descriptors.)  This slightly spicy, medium bodied white wine had lots of bright lime-citrus, Bramley apple skin tartness on the palate with a slight almondy-bitterness on the finish.  Yum.
And there you have it, a truly wonderful tipple.  He's not my actual uncle, but thank you Bob Sinskey for making a fabulous wine.

Can the can.

I only bought this wine because Thud absolutely hated the whole concept of wine in an aluminium can.  My dear brother generally doesn't like any beverage in a can; he much prefers beer, soda and wine packaged in glass bottles.  He would can this can.
I didn't have strong feelings one way or another about this packaging initially, but now I love it.  The can (produced by the Ball Corporation, better known for its jars) is just so convenient, it's less weight than glass and the wine seemed to chill better in aluminium.  This can is possibly the perfect wine packaging for travelling, picnics, or just throwing one in your handbag.
Purchased at Whole Foods for $4.97 (which would make this 375ml can a $10.00 bottle of wine), the Underwood Pinot gris, from the Union Wine Co., in Oregon, wasn't the greatest wine, but it made a pretty decent apéritif for three people.  Searing lemon-drop acidity, which definitely knocked my 'Queen of Tart' crown off my head, dominated the palate, with a bit of Granny Smith-malic-acidy-zip thrown in for good measure. Clean, quite refreshing and with a hint of effervescence, I would try this wine again.  I even like Union Wine Company's use of the social media metadata tag of #pinkiesdown with which they aim to take the pretension out of wine drinking.  Fun.

Can spring be far behind?

No, in fact spring is just a few hours away. Of course, these Pinot gris and Syrah buds seem to think the vernal equinox has already arrived. I can forgive them their mistake, we have had spectacular 80/81 degree temperatures the past couple of days. Even the trees in Vinoland are bursting with baby leaves giving them a green, fuzzy hue from afar and don't get me started on how tall the grass is. However, trees and grass are not in the least threatened by spring frost, but grapevines are. My promiscuous grapevines, with their casual attitude towards frost, might be in for a rude awakening.

Suck it up!

I finished pruning Vinoland's white grape varietals today (this is a Pinot gris bud).
Looks like I was just in time. The ground is apparently warming up and signalling to the grapevines to get on with bud break. It hasn't been a very cold winter so it doesn't really surprise me to see something that looks suspiciously like bud-swelling in the Orange muscat. It is all a bit bothersome though, as now I have to worry about frost.
In a neighbouring vineyard a mechanic was tinkering with a large fan ensuring sure that it will run when needed, as all the fans in the valley have not been used since last April. Spring is truly just around the corner!

Peek-a-boo!

Hello there little vine!
It amazes me how dormant, bench grafted vines muster up the energy, stored in their roots, to push through the mound of earth above them. It's a vineyard miracle :)
When the growth is about another inch long I will gently break down the mounds and let photosynthesis perform it's wondrous wizardry.
Of course this means the vines will need to be irrigated now as they will have almost depleted the moisture content of the soil they were planted in. Vinomaker, where are you?

The hills have vines.

What is this? Some barren moonscape? Evidence of crazed, hill building moles with a knack for synchronicity? No, it is just the extension of our Pinot gris block here in Vinoland.
The little bench grafts are stretching out their roots, taking up nutrients and water, and reaching upwards, through the mounded soil, to the awaiting California sun. I'll be there to greet them when they make their entrance into the world.

Hard graft!

Finally, all the new Pinot gris bench grafts are in. It's been a long, tiring, often frustrating process, especially for Vinomaker who did the majority of the work, (I am competent with a shovel, but more impressive in a supervisory capacity.)
We chose to use bench grafts over field budding, simply to ensure a better percentage of successful adult vines. Our Cabernet sauvignon and Syrah were all field budded (and the majority of our existing Pinot gris), and they are happy healthy vines...we just wanted this block of new plantings up and running the first time around. We had a 100% take with our Orange muscat block, so we were encouraged to go the bench graft route once more.
Bench grafts are a more expensive approach to establishing a vineyard: there is a lot of work done in the nursery to produce a graft that is alive and calloused fast to the rootstock. You can see the callous around the graft in the picture with the nascent Pinot gris buds above. Doesn't look like much does it? However, in 4 years time it will be a tasty glass of chilled white wine enjoyed on a warm, sunny Napa summer day.

Timber!

Oops! It seems we had an issue with several trees, erm, falling over today in Vinoland. It is somehow hard for trees to remain vertical around here!
I think I'll plant some Pinot gris in their place.

Vinomaker is stumped.

But not for long.
Before I went to England Vinomaker and I decided that it would be a great idea to plant some more Pinot gris vines here in Vinoland. There was just the little matter of a rather sizable oak tree stump in our path.
This picture does not do the actual size of the excavation justice, I should have included in it one of the Vinodogs for scale. Each night when I come home from the winery the crater is larger than when I departed in the morning. When will it be at an end? Hopefully soon, as the baby vines are warming up in the wine cellar below the house and want to be planted before they bud out or expire, which ever comes first.

My babies.

I spent most of the day in the vineyard performing, what my professor at the college would call, spring viticultural operations. I call it back breaking work: suckering extraneous shoots from the trunks of the vines and stuffing wayward shoots into the trellis wires. The rows really look pretty when you are finished, but that's really not the point...unless you are a girl. I also trained up some baby vines. Can we all say, ahhh.
I had field budded some vines last September and now it is time to train them up a stake and watch them mature into wine grape bearing adults. Sniff. Brings tears to my eyes, or is that my back aching?