Paso Robles Big Sky
I spent an hour or so rambling around the vineyard on Monday to get a sense of to what extent we'd been hit by the frosts the mornings of April 25th and 26th. It looks like the damage was serious -- the worst that we've seen
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Pretty Pictures
A collection of 348 posts
Signs of Spring
We've been getting lots of small rainstorms over the last month. It's a lot better than what we saw in January, so I'm not really complaining, but we're still missing that one big five-inch dousing that will really replenish the reservoirs and
Fog in the Vineyard
It's not foggy out at Tablas Creek very often. Our elevation (1500 feet) and the barrier of the Santa Lucia Mountains mean that neither the Salinas Valley fog that settles in areas close to town on summer mornings nor the Pacific fog that comes through the Templeton Gap
Snow in the Vineyard
We're (finally, thankfully) in a cold, wet winter weather pattern. Over the past four days we've received about 3.5 inches of rain, and it appears that we have Pacific storms dropping down out of Alaska every other day for the next ten days or so.
A frosty winter morning (and more good weather ahead!)
We're finally in a great winter weather pattern. We've seen measurable rain each of the last four days (totaling about 2.5 inches) and a couple of very cold nights in the mid-20s. It's a terrific time of year for this, as the cold
Spectacular Winter Sunsets in Paso Robles
I don't always enjoy December in Paso Robles. It gets old that it's dark at 5pm; I get tired of driving home dodging deer; and it's usually cold enough here in winter evenings that even taking the kids for a walk around the neighborhood
Autumn Vineyard Photo Essay, Part 6: Winter's Approach
Without particularly intending to, I realized that I'd taken several vineyard photos that showed the approach of the winter season through a chilly quality of the light and a selection of wind-blown leaves and (comparatively) bare vines. It seems a fitting conclusion to this autumn vineyard photo essay
Autumn Vineyard Photo Essay, Part 5: Grenache
Our Grenache section is always one of the most beautiful in the vineyard. Grenache vines are vigorous, and provide satisfyingly thick trunks from even fairly young vines. The leaves are a vibrant yellow-green during the spring and summer, noticeably brighter than other varietals. They stay green later in the season,
Autumn Vineyard Photo Essay, Part 4: Seeding the Cover Crop
There's not much to do in the vineyard at this time of year. You need to wait for everything to go fully dormant before you prune, and once harvest is complete, the only typical action you take is to make sure that the vines get some irrigation as
Autumn Vineyard Photo Essay, Part 3: Relics of a Challenging Vintage
2008 was a challenging vintage. As I described in my 2008 vintage assessment, we saw issues with late frosts in the spring, early frosts in the fall, low yields, shatter and uneven ripening. These all left marks on the vineyard which you can see even now. This first photo shows