Bad Week.

I'm so glad that TIME magazine (September 25 2017 issue) summed up the 2017 growing season for its readership in one small sentence, albeit in a large red dot.
Yes, admittedly, it did get a little toasty earlier this month.  The mercury climbed to 108 °F in Vinoland and got as high as 114 °F up in Rutherford.  Grapevines do not thrive in extremely hot weather, not many plants do. However, with careful canopy management and an effective irrigation programme - throughout the entire growing season, not just when it is hot - most vineyards fare quite well.  The vast majority of Napa's growers will have planned ahead to ensure that their vineyards could withstand a heatwave.  Consequently, because of these best management practices, vineyards valley-wide saw very little raisining.
My sense of the 2017 growing season is that it has been a rather average one, more normal in many respects.  It isn't that unusual to experience changeable weather in any growing period.  The vineyards of the Napa Valley may, or may not, encounter bud-killing frosts in late spring, rainy days in early summer and the occasional spell of exceptionally high temperatures, and survive it all.  The sky is not falling down.
Curious as to what passes as a 'Good Week' in TIME?  Fast food chain, Chipotle, is now serving up a spicy cheese at all of its restaurants.  Very hot news indeed.

Vinoland's Cup.

With trying to keep up in the vineyard, suckering and stuffing shoots, and all that, I am a bit behind on my reading.  Last night, trying to get in a bit of reading before I fell asleep, I noticed this article in the April 13th issue of Time. When Pope Francis visits the United States in September he is going to use a very special silver chalice at a mass in New York (not the mass in Washington D.C. at which the Pope will canonize Blessed Junípero Serra).  

Crafted from donations of silver, by silversmith Adrián Pallarols, the design of the chalice will include quite a bit of symbolism, like; stylised leaves for the Garden of Eden; columns and arches representing St. Patrick's Cathedral, NYC; and a map of the United States as the host country. In Adrián's first sketch of the chalice design he forgot to include the non-contiguous states of Alaska and Hawaii.  An easy oversight, I suppose, and easily amended.  But, hang on a minute, there is still one glaring omission; Señor Pallarols forgot to include Vinoland.  What?  It's okay folks, don't panic, I've added Vinoland myself, all fixed.
One question still remains to be answered though.  What wine will be in the chalice? Vinomaker said it most likely would be Manischewitz.  But, (rolling my eyes), I'm thinking it should be something from Napa.

Illustration courtesy of Time Magazine.