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Pretty Pictures

A collection of 341 issues

Veraison 2020 reflects our cool July and suggests a (gasp) normal start to harvest

The 2020 growing season has been a lovely antidote to all the chaos out in the world. Unlike many years, we've avoided both heat spikes and extended chilly periods. A graph of the daytime highs since May 1st gives a sense of how things have been distributed through

A Summer Solstice Vineyard Walking Tour

For the last three months, I've been taking walks through the vineyard every Wednesday morning to gather photographs to share during the weekly Instagram Live broadcasts I've been hosting from Tablas Creek. This has given me a more consistent archive of the changes in the vineyard

Match-Making During Lockdown: Roasted Quail with Asian Flavors and Grenache

By Barbara Haas. Photos by Rebecca Haas and Ellery Hutten. Chester, Vermont is where we've lived for fifty years and where I still spend summers. This summer has been unlike any other. With social distancing in force and restaurants closed, we've been eating every meal at

Flowering 2020: A little delayed, but all the more welcome

Budbreak gave us the first sign that we were on at least a somewhat later track this year. Flowering, which I've been waiting to see for a couple of weeks now, confirms it. This suggests that we're looking at a similarly cool beginning of the growing

A last look back at the winter of 2019-20

This week, it finally feels like we've made the pivot from spring to summer. After several weeks of cool, wet weather, which delayed the spread of budbreak and encouraged an explosion of cover crop growth, this week it's sunny and warm. It's hit 82,

Budbreak 2020: The World May Be Crazy, but the Vineyard is Right on Time

This winter has very much been one of phases. November was chilly but almost entirely dry, which got us into dormancy early but put us a bit behind in cover crop growth. December was very wet, with 6.66 inches of rain and 13 days with measurable precipitation. January and

A Walk through the Vineyard, Poised between Winter and Spring

Even as we have implemented major changes to the business side of what we do, the vineyard continues its march through the seasons. The grapevines don't know that there's a shelter at home order. The cover crops aren't interested in quarantine details. Instead, they&

The Vineyard After a Wet December and a Sunny January is Impossibly Green

Last week, I commented on Twitter that we were entering the season where Paso Robles is absurdly beautiful everywhere you look. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself. December's rain and a mostly sunny January have combined to produce an explosion of cover crop growth,

Six inches of rain in two weeks begins the vineyard's winter transformation

California, when it rains, is a paradise. The landscape transforms from stark browns and golds to something softer, with blurred edges. Green appears, seemingly overnight, as grasses and broadleaf seeds that have been waiting for moisture sprout and push leaves above the surface. Puffy white clouds appear in the sky,

A Dry, Chilly Beginning to the 2019 Winter Season

Those of you who have been following California's recurring struggles with fire won't be surprised to hear that it's been dry. Record low relative humidity has been a major contributing factor to the wildfires that have raged in both northern and southern California. Here