Growing Vines & wines

Windows to the creative process

Plants talk to me. Not in the same way some of my west-county neighbors communicate with fairies or past lives, more like how looking in the mirror makes you have an internal conversation. Most of the leaves are gone by now and we had quite a few frosty nights, a signal to vintners that pruning can begin. As I walk down the rows and begin choosing where to make the next pruning cut I look for signs; are there any signs of damage from the smoke that engulfed the vines in August? Do the vines show any sign that the low rainfall is affecting their habit? Do they know we are in the middle of a pandemic? The answer is a resounding triple "No" which causes me to smile internally and settle into a meditative working rhythm. Clip, Clip, pull some canes. Clip, clip, count the spurs. Pretty soon the hands work on auto-pilot and the mind is free to roam, and as it does - you start to realize a great calm has descended on you. The sun will continue to send energy towards us, the days will soon get longer and a new cycle will begin. The buds that carry within next fall's vintage are staring me in the face and telling me to relax, all will be well in the long run.
2020 marked the first crop of Pinot Noir from the two acres I replanted in the spring of 2018. I am, so far, ecstatic about the quality of the wines we produced from the two clones and will wait till late spring to decide whether any of it merits a single vineyard bottling. 2021 will be the first crop for the new Grenache block, at this point I plan to use it for the Watergirl Rose on the first year and then develop it for high quality Grenache to use with the Syrah or maybe as a single varietal.

DID YOU KNOW?  
Genetic science estimates that grapevines have been around for 65 million years! Humans have been around about 2 million years
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Sheltering in place has lead me to do quite a bit of creative writing.  I have been writing to myself, to friends and family and even to those I thought were friends and family.  This one is written for you.

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What guides us in the vineyard

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Farming Practices at Longboard Vineyards

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Today is one of those foggy and quiet mornings in Russian River Valley. Low grey clouds mixed with wispy fog that still allows you to experience the vivid shades of green from the healthy growth on the grapevines. Something is different about sound quality on mornings like this, I wonder if the low clouds act as would walls of padded recording studio – bouncing and distilling s ...

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Expanding a bit on the email we sent in January… 2012 is now gone and despite the rumors of the planet’s demise, we are mostly here in one or more pieces.  Nature delivered us a great gift this past harvest (Longboard’s 15th); a bountiful crop that was both free of pests and diseases and brimming with developed flavors.  I know, it is boring to hear another winemaker say that ...

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As a teenager, I was drawn to science fiction books. As soon as Asimov, Herbert or C. Clarke published a new one, I was on it like a Hobo on a Ham sandwich. It was science fiction that introduced me to the concept of Entropy (a thermodynamic property of systems, basically the observation that isolated systems tend to lose energy and eventually collapse). You may ask what does ...

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In the beginning there was wine that came forth from the fruit of a vine.  And the people of the Farmers tribe tended to the vines and nourished the fruit till it burst with flavor and sugars and proceeded to deliver it to the folk at the winery. And the winery tribe folk said: “Thanks” and wished the Farmers tribe a joyful vacation while they toiled in the caves and the tanks ...

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Imagine for a minute a crazy world.  Imagine you live  just outside Atlanta, Georgia.  You own a Peach farm and produce preserved peaches.  You work hard to improve the quality of your product and your efforts pay off, you start to get inquireries from folk in Delaware about purchasing some of your Peach preserves.  Now imagine this: you can’t simply ship your product to Delawa ...

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A few years before she died, my grandma decided to take a computer class.  I was quite impressed she had the guts to do this but what came out of my mouth was something along the lines of: “Aren’t you too old for this"? Grandma, a crusty, strict, German-Czech holocaust survivor, raised an eyebrow and proceeded to tell me that just because she remembers sitting on her Grandfathe ...

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