Life on the Farm

The end of a growing season is always a natural time for reflection, and this year I find myself contemplating larger themes and looking for meaning amidst the rows and barrels.  Inevitably, I come to the conclusion that I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to spend my days working on a family farm.

Life on a farm is all I’ve ever known.  It has been the constant that has shaped my personal relationships, my career and my thoughts.  Sure, there were brief times when I seriously considered other callings, but a sense of duty and the love of a challenge eventually superseded any alternative ambitions.

My thoughts on farm life, stewardship and succession have evolved through the years as I’ve grown and matured.  A young child can’t help but be ignorant to the challenges of succession, and is likely to perceive the passing down of land as a given part of the family story, the way things have always worked.  But with each passing year and vintage, one becomes increasingly aware of how tenuous and vulnerable a farm can be, and how relatively small a window of time each steward occupies in the grand scheme of things.

I draw inspiration from the previous generations and land inhabitants whom I envision living a more mindful, “in the moment”  lifestyle, one that I strive to emulate.  Enjoying the here and now can add fulfillment to our lives, while devoting enough time to future planning is our moral obligation.  The balance between these two is the burden that can weigh heaviest on farmers.  One of my biggest faults is worrying too much in the moment, which is not beneficial to either of these pursuits!

Fretting about the failure of a crop can sometimes blind me from the mind-nourishing aspect of vineyard work.  Just being outside, genuinely endeavouring to help things grow should be considered a triumph, not whether your Pinot Noir is squeaky clean (although that would be a nice consolation).  Working in a vineyard can be equal parts exercise, meditation and stimulation – a payoff, of sorts, for the sacrifices that accompany a year-round farm operation.

In short, 2023 marked a wonderful year of rejuvenation for our vineyard.  Young blocks that had struggled to get established, finally flourished, while the older blocks that were decimated by cold-induced trunk damage returned to full production.  The crops were bountiful and we experienced a dream September for ripening grapes that made up for a less than ideal summer.  The wines show great promise!

So my resolution, as I set out to make the first pruning cuts of 2024, is to view time in the vineyard as the unrelenting yearly cycle that is made up of individual vintages whose varied characteristics are formed through memorable daily experiences, both positive and negative.  In other words, life.

It is filled with tremendous volatility, but there is also comfort in it’s reliable churn.

2020 Pinot Noir

It is perhaps unfair to compare and contrast the work that goes into growing Pinot Noir with that applied to other varietals, but that is exactly what I intend to do here.

The only time I don’t wake up thinking about Pinot Noir is the short window of time between bottling day (early April) and budbreak (late April) – a most joyous stretch that I cherish akin to The Masters each Spring.  The other 11 months and change can only be described as an all out battle of wills that would provide a fitting test for even the “Tiger Woods” of grape growers.  For the record, I’ve had my share of Greg Norman-esque collapses through the years.

In the Lowrey Vineyard, the cycle begins in December with the first pruning cuts of the season.  Traditionally, we opt to prune our old Pinot block first each winter, as the vines usually winterize and harden off earlier than our other varietals.  Excess wood is trimmed away from the vine until we are left with four canes to choose from, each housing 8-10 buds.  Two of those four canes will be tied down and two left as insurance, to be removed after a successful budbreak in Spring.

Budbreak is always a nervous time, especially in early awakening varietals like Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris.  Minor frost damage is usually inevitable, so it becomes more about avoiding the killer frost.  Windmills can be handy in this pursuit, but they are not the magic shield that they are sometimes made out to be.

Once the frost worries subside, the real fun begins.  I would estimate that I average at least a couple of hours each day through the growing season tending to Pinot Noir.  It is at this point where every vine becomes a puzzle that needs to be solved, but with a solution that is constantly evolving based on the conditions.  Pinot Noir vines grow very vigorously, and it is easy to get behind in taming the growth should you get complacent.  Recent research has shed light on the benefits of early season basal leaf removal in berry set of Pinot Noir, so that is now a focal point along with regular thinning practices.  The ultimate goal is establishing proper shoot spacing, cluster load and berry set prior to bloom phase.

As the canopy takes shape, the bloom through veraison stage shifts focus to disease prevention and maintenance.  Depending on the day, I might be tinkering with shoot positioning, removing leaves, cluster thinning or hedging.  Although all varietals have need of these jobs in varying degrees, no varietal demands the attention to detail required in Pinot Noir.  It is reflected in the make or break nature of Pinot, which is certainly not for the faint of heart.  I may have alluded to this once or twice over the years.

The “easy” stage of Pinot growing ends abruptly, as the berries fully colour up and start to accumulate enough sugar to entice a shocking number of pests to have a taste.  It is a time when the tightness of the cluster, and any trapped debris within, can pose a potential threat of Botrytis.  It is important to be especially vigilant with both your eyes and nose when walking through the vineyard on the hunt for any signs of rot.  If found, the offending clusters are removed promptly to prevent disease spread via fruit flies.  This constant daily search for rot can take a mental toll, so I make sure to break up my days by working in easier varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon.

The final gauntlet of Pinot Noir growing revolves around when to harvest the crop.  I’ve written about this agonizing decision many times in the past, but there are so many variables at play it doesn’t hurt to review.  Every vintage presents a new set of parameters that you must adapt to:  cluster tightness, skin thickness, crop load, weather conditions, disease pressure, seed ripeness, flavour development, berry composition (sugars and acids) and stem ripeness (should you choose to include whole clusters in your fermentations).

Once a picking date is settled upon, or more likely forces itself upon you, we now enter the thorough Pinot Noir sorting process.  Ours is three stage: a walkthrough visual inspection of every cluster in the rows we choose to harvest, a second closer inspection of each cluster by the hand-picking crew and, finally, a third rotten berry inspection en route to the destemmer.  Only then can I feel confident that the fruit we’ve worked so hard to keep clean and ripen is fit to be vinified.

The 2020 vintage was characterized by an early budbreak and some long stretches of the hot and dry conditions that winemakers dream about.  There were the usual challenges (detailed above), but ultimately the fruit came in ripe and beautiful on September 18th (21.6 degrees Brix, 7.0 g/L TA).  Our fruit was harvested from rows 2-5 of our oldest vines and rows 8 and 15 from the slightly younger plantings.  Whole clusters were added to two separate bins (10%) and then filled with destemmed berries (90%).  The clean fruit was allowed to soak in the bins for seven days before natural fermentation began.

Fermentations were punched down by hand three times daily, reached a peak temperature of 30C, and were dry after seven days.  The new wines were pressed after a five-day post ferment maceration.  Five French oak barrels were filled (20% new oak) and allowed to undergo malolactic fermentation over the next couple of months. The wine spent 24 months in oak before bottling 122 cases on April 6th, 2023.

I am in love with this Pinot Noir right now, mainly due to its striking aromatics of ripe cherry, black currant jam and truffle/mushroom.  It is very tempting to advise enjoying it now, but I’m sure it will evolve and improve over the next few years.  If you like a Pinot that exhibits a bit of youthful tannin, then by all means give it a go!

A Vintage For The Ages

Well, that was special.  It was almost like mother nature knew she owed us one.

I’ll preface by saying that all vintages are difficult undertakings that require a tremendous amount of patience and co-operation from all ends of the industry.  Some are beasts that we never wish to encounter again, while others are a little more forgiving and borderline enjoyable – but no vintage that I’ve ever experienced has gone as smoothly as 2020.

For months I’ve been afraid to verbalize my thoughts on our good fortunes, in fear that it would cause some catastrophic shift in the weather.  There were moments (hurricane tracking, sporadic hail) when it appeared that our luck may have run out, but somehow, each time the threat magically diminished.

In my experience, it is rare that a good stretch of summer weather for ripening grapes (warm, sunny, relatively dry, but not too dry!)  transitions smoothly and holds for an entire fall harvest.  In 2020, the smaller berry sizes and lower crop levels we saw were primarily the product of below average precipitation.  Unlike other dry years, however, we didn’t experience much in the way of drought stress or sustained stretches of mildew-inducing humidity.  All of these factors combined to give us some of the cleanest fruit we’ve ever harvested – across the board.

It was a year where everything seemed to ripen at once – making it much easier to line up our varietals for processing, given the seemingly endless days of perfect picking weather.  Admittedly, I come at things from a very small production winery perspective, so I’m sure there were logistical issues associated with having all varietals concurrently ripe that became difficult for larger wineries and growers.  Fortunately, few will ever complain about having to wait a bit longer to harvest their ripe, clean fruit – certainly not the birds!

At Five Rows, our vintage usually gets off to a fast start, with three early varietals that represent some of the first fruit harvested in the region: Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir.  We then bide our time until the Riesling and Syrah are ready, while the Cabernet Sauvignon is hung until the very end of the season for maximum ripeness.  In 2020, the latter three varietals were all picked on dates much earlier than average – and all showed ripeness levels that we’ve rarely achieved.  I had to look twice at the refractometer when my first Syrah sample read 26 degrees Brix – was this St. David’s or the Barossa Valley!?

One would think that the ripest grapes always translate to the best wines, but personal experience tells me there is more to it than that.  Working with abnormally ripe fruit actually presents some new challenges when it comes to fermentation dynamics.  In a “cooler” climate like Niagara, we are used to harvesting grapes with ample acidity and relatively low pH, making it less favourable for undesirable microbes to flourish in the primary fermentation.  When the opposite proved true in 2020 (lower TA, higher pH), fruit cleanliness became the key to trusting our normal protocol of a spontaneous (“wild”) start to fermentation.  The higher initial sugar content in the grapes also leads to an increase in potential alcohol and longer fermentations, meaning particular attention had to be paid to yeast and malolactic bacteria viability.  There were a few stragglers, but eventually all of my fermentations arrived at a nice, dry endpoint.

It’s early days yet, but the 2020 reds seem like they could have a bright future ahead.  Their obvious ripeness is sure to be the initial attention grabber, but their overall balance and familiar Lowrey Vineyard aromatics will tell the story of a special vintage form a unique place.  A place where we can ripen a wide range of varietals and still make elegant, terroir-expressing wines.

I am far too grizzled a grape grower to think that the stretch of conditions we experienced in 2020 could happen again in my lifetime, but I do feel it bodes well for future vintages.  There will always be an underlying fear of extreme weather events, but to know that all six of our varietals hit peak ripeness levels in one singular vintage is a very exciting prospect.

Thankfully, not all things arriving in 2020 turned out so bad after all (just the vast majority).

 

 

 

Vintage 2018: A Tale of Two Seasons

Now that the last of the Cabernet Sauvignon is finally in barrel, it’s time to take a relaxing look back at the complex 2018 Vintage.  Legitimate attempts are made to positively reminisce, only to get bogged down each time with flashbacks to rainy days and rotten fruit.  It turns out that there will be nothing “relaxing” about this exercise after all!

I will never take a dry October for granted again.  It becomes apparent, in a year such as this, how extremely fortunate we are as winemakers when late fall conditions are either dry or warm or both.  We come to accept that early harvest weather is nearly always variable due to August and September heat and thunderstorm threats, but in recent years we’ve been treated to glorious October and November days that were perfect for ripening Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.  This was certainly not the case in 2018!  However, do not despair Cab lovers, the last month of hang time does not tell the whole story of 2018 – making it a truly one of a kind and intriguing vintage.

After a normal budbreak date and good initial bud survival rates, the vines took off and never slowed down.  Continued lush growth, even through a very dry season, illustrated how important the rainy year of 2017 was to replenish the water table for deep-rooted, old vines.  In fact, 2017 and 2018 would prove to be polar opposite vintages from a climate pattern standpoint, which should make for some interesting comparative tastings in the future.

As the summer progressed, wary farmers would shy away from predicting just how good the season was shaping up to be, perhaps because they could sense an eventual turn for the worse.  I’ve learned the hard way to trust the intuition of wise old farmers…and only hope that I can become one someday.

A very hot, humid stretch in late August brought about a rapid transition through veraison and left winemakers drooling at the possibilities.  Negatively, it also ramped up disease pressure from both botrytis and Grape Berry Moth, creating breakdown chaos all over the peninsula.  All the early varietals were ready to pick at once – and two weeks early at that!

It was setting up to be an easy glide into the later varietals, when the aforementioned rains innocently started to fall.  What followed was a miserable cycle of vineyard work, fruit sampling, cursing, thinning clusters, sampling again and more cursing.  It took much perseverance and the continued ruthless thinning of rotten berries to salvage any kind of quality crop.

As a grape grower, it was a minor victory just to have all of your fruit accepted by wineries in 2018.  The predominant post-harvest feeling among winemakers was that the early varietals showed much promise, but achieving peak phenolic ripeness in the later stuff (Cab Sauv, Merlot, Cab Franc) was hit and miss depending on the vineyard.  My hope is that the summer heat, combined with the late season grunt work, was enough to produce a Cabernet Sauvignon worthy of a Five Rows handwritten label.

Perspective is understandably clouded in the aftermath of a challenging vintage, but my years in this industry have taught me that time will soften my feelings about 2018, just like time in barrel will soften the wines.

Thinning in the Rain

Lately, I’ve gotten into the habit of singing the song “Here Comes the Sun” to my daughter every morning, in hopes of changing the prevailing weather pattern of 2017.  I make an effort not to complain too much about the excessive rain around her, just to lessen the chance she grows up to be a crotchety grape farmer.  So, instead, we focus on “sunnier” topics and stories from glorious vintages of the past.

She has no idea that you can literally watch the vines grow this year – we must have set some kind of record for photosynthesis by now!  I can’t recall a year where every bud on every shoot is alive and thriving.  On the macro level this is a great thing (healthy vines, good crop level, replenished water table), but when you are fully immersed in this tropical Niagara jungle on a daily basis, you quickly realize the enormity of task we are up against.

The rains of 2017 have been a frightening reminder that there is no “typical” growing season anymore.  There could not be a more stark contrast between two vintages than 2016 and 2017 to this point.  Consequently, our vineyard strategies have had to be dramatically altered to account for the increase in shoot growth.

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as just aggressively thinning down the vines to their “normal” level, because the few leftover shoots and clusters would grow too vigorously.  Therefore, I’ve taken more of a staggered approach to thinning this year, letting vines gradually acclimate to the increase in water and nutrient uptake.  Keeping more shoots and clusters on the vine for a longer period of time can also be risky, because too much crowding in the canopy might lead to increased disease pressure.  So being out there every day thinning, scouting and gauging shoot growth is essential.

Thankfully, the disease pressure has been minimal thus far…that is until we sustained some hail damage over the past week, presenting a new challenge of split and bruised berries.  Split berries and excessive humidity are the perfect recipe for Botrytis, so we are pulling leaves and opening up the canopy a little earlier than normal to help dry up the hail damage.  For the record, I’m not quite comfortable using the B-word around Frances yet.

This season has proven to be an exercise in patience and adaptation.  I hold out hope, looking at the sunny long range forecast, that my determined morning sing-along is finally paying off!

 

 

Times and Diapers are a Changin’

 

As we get ready for another busy spring season of new wines and budding vines, I’m faced with an unforeseen conundrum.  It comes in the form of a nine pound baby girl named Frances, and the seeming lack of hours in a day to do what I used to do.

Those who have read this blog would know me as a hyper-focused creature of habit, eagerly devoting my time to barn and field.  In my defence, the task just draws you in completely – to the point where it consumes much of your thought and attention should you let it…and I do.  I’ve managed to convince myself that this is the only possible way to make good wine and damned be the person or thing (aside from my dogs) that gets in the way of this ultimate pursuit!

Enter the cuddly conundrum.  My wife, Tanya, and I recently decided to start a family and were blessed with a healthy baby girl on March 19th, 2017 – the ultimate reality check.  To say that my priorities have been altered would be an understatement, but not quite in the way that I expected.  At a time when I was fully prepared to be overwhelmed and stretched thin, I somehow feel more capable than ever to summon the effort required to produce the best possible fruit that our land will allow.  Little Frances has no idea that she’s already had a positive impact on the way I approach farming and life.

Perhaps it is a renewed sense of stewardship for future generations or perhaps it is just adrenaline.  Either way, I feel more inspired to work hard and less restrained by previous fears and uncertainties.  This is entirely due to the support of those around me:  Tanya, my parents, retail staff, vineyard crews and our beloved “Five Rows Faithful”.  I know I can count on them to keep the barn humming, even when I’m at home being a Dad.

So no need to worry, the wines will get the same attention they always do – you’ll just have to sit through a few baby pictures to get a taste!

FrancesBarn

 

 

Reflections on 2016

It is difficult to sum up an entire growing season in a couple of words, but I’d bet if you asked a bunch of Ontario grape growers and winemakers to describe 2016, the bulk of them would quickly reply, “hot and dry!”

That will be the narrative going forward, but obviously there is much more to explore about this fascinating season.  I learned many things in 2016, most of which the hard way.  There was no precedent in my memory bank for such prolonged dry conditions, especially when the weather forecast seemed to feature a constant 60% chance of precipitation five days from now.  Front after threatening front would approach and break-up at the escarpment, splitting north and south of St. David’s and leaving us basking in sunlight.

I was reticent to use irrigation early in the season and this proved to be a tactical error.  Having completed a Master’s Degree in Viticulture entitled  “Examining the Effects of Deficit Irrigation on Cool Climate Chardonnay”, you’d think I’d know better.  When we finally decided to irrigate our vines, it was inevitable that a chain would break on our traveler cannon, and the town would impose water restrictions…our drought continued.

The first lesson learned is that you are flying blind if you don’t take steps to measure vine and soil water status to gauge potential stress.  It was pointed out to me that this is second nature in BC, but foreign to many Ontario farmers.  We tend to think of a drought as something that pops up every five years or so (2007, 2012, 2016), but perhaps it will prove to be a climate change related trend going forward.

Thankfully, the older vines didn’t seem to mind the stressful conditions and continued to thrive.  Younger vines, those plated in 2009 and later, showed signs of stress even with supplemental irrigation.  Bloom phase is a critical point in the season to ensure the vines have adequate water and nutrition.  The lack of early rain in 2016 meant that any spring nutrition added in the form of fertilizer and manure could not percolate down to the roots at bloom, ultimately leading to poor fruit set.

Another observation from this past year is that some blocks have not fully recovered from the winters of 2013 and 2014.  Replacement of dead and damaged trunks has left these vineyards unbalanced in terms of vine status, nutrient allocation and ultimately vigour within each row.  More evidence is the increase in crown gall virus, which can be caused by cold temperature splitting of trunk tissue.

The effects of the drought may actually have a short term silver lining.  In 2016, winemakers were thrilled to see lower crop levels, smaller berry size, moderate vine stress and little canopy growth after veraison – all of which being favourable conditions for crafting premium wines.  If the aromatic intensity of the 2016 whites is of any indication, we have may have something to be very excited about.

I’m sure 2017 will present its share of surprises and challenges, but I definitely intend to be more proactive when it comes to the water and nutrient status of my vines.

 

Sonic Bloom

Vineyard workers sneeze in unison as the unmistakable smell of grapevines in bloom wafts across the peninsula.  Each pull of a shoot or yank of a sucker knocks thousands of pollen particles into the air – and eventually into our collective nasal passages to create one mighty “sonic bloom”.

What a difference a year makes.  I remember the abject despair with which I traversed these rows last spring, as one vine after another collapsed into oblivion.  The growing season of 2015 became more about rejuvenation than celebration in a number of varietals – particularly Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc.

I can’t begin to describe the relief in watching the tender suckers I white-knuckled together last season become the strong, fully-budding trunks I see before me now.  There are still failures, but not nearly in the magnitude of 2015.  Ideal weather conditions have helped get us back on track and now I can shift my focus back to formulating a plan to shape and position these burgeoning vines.

Please stay with me here as I attempt to outline a mindset that some may find perplexing.  I was a weird kid (you can debate whether this has changed) who always found comfort in a well-organized strategy.  Toys were for displaying and cataloging, not playing with.  Upon receipt of the official Toronto Maple Leaf 1984-85 Fact Book, I set out to memorize the birthdays and relevant personal facts of the entire roster, just so I could be prepared if anyone ever asked me.  Kids growing up in the Google age will never experience the joys of memorizing useless facts – like Walt Poddubny’s pre-game meal or Bill Derlago’s favourite out of town restaurant.

So here is where my head is at when I look out over the vineyard on this first day of summer: roughly 150 rows to tackle, at an average of 3 rows per day, means that I should be able to finish properly fashioning my vines in about 50 days.  Factoring in that my progress will be slower as the days get hotter and the vine growth intensifies, and throwing in the odd “wife-mandated” day off, I should be done thinning in about two months.

I’m most efficient working down each row from left to right and prefer not to leave an unfinished row at the end of the day.  One veteran move is to always work on the shady side of the row (west side in the morning, east side in the afternoon), as it will keep you cooler throughout the day and the contrast will be better for locating unwanted growth.

My traditional starting point would be the Pinot Noir blocks, but the Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon are showing the strongest vigour this year, with an inordinate amount of secondary shoots and an explosion of centrally located growth – all of which must go!

There is a method to this mindset, as I find greater motivation when jobs have a clear start and end point.  It is one reason why we release wines only once per year.  The wine is bottled and the wine is sold, then we start all over again.  It may be what appeals to me most about farming – every season has a harvest, an ultimate prize to work toward and celebrate upon it’s completion.

That’s enough typing for now…I’ve got three rows to finish.

 

 

 

Vineyard of Excellence?

 

As a general rule, I don’t enjoy being judged.  I’d much rather blend into the background like a chameleon and go about my business unnoticed.  There are exceptions, however, and when we got the letter that our family vineyard had been nominated for the 2016 Cuvée Vineyard of Excellence award, I realized that the time had come to get over this phobia and submit myself to potential criticism.

The specific block in the spotlight was our Clone 169 Cabernet Sauvignon, located just steps outside the barn door.  It was planted in the late 90’s, using “traditional” Lowrey methods:  Dad on the tractor and my Mom and I pulled behind on the planter.  The Lowrey method relied heavily on the ability of the tractor driver to maintain a straight line, and the jury is still out as to whether Howard Jr. inherited his father’s eagle eye and steady hand.  This was before the days of GPS and laser-guided planters – and one look at the hither and yon vine spacing is more than enough evidence of that.  It is also worth pointing out that proper and consistent end-post angles were not yet fashionable in the 90’s.  You have to remember this was the the decade of frosted tips and crooked posts.

So needless to say, I was greatly relieved to find out that the Award of Excellence was not based solely on aesthetics.  An esteemed panel of judges would scout the field at certain points during the season to evaluate vine balance, fruit maturity, disease pressure, crop level, and harvest ripeness parameters.  Being a Cab Sauv block, our biggest challenge in Niagara is getting enough heat to ripen the fruit, so I did my best to thin the block to a level that would give each vine a chance to ripen its crop load.  Thankfully, the late summer and fall of 2015 provided just the conditions we needed.

When it was announced at the Cuvée ceremony last night that we had, in fact, been named recipients of this award, I was struck with many emotions.  To be on the stage with my Dad, being recognized for something that we had done together will be something I never forget.  Looking out on the crowd of people, I realized many of them had been directly responsible for my choice of career and it reminded me how fortunate I’ve been to receive their guidance over the years.  Perhaps there was also some validation for doing things the old fashioned way – a small vineyard, a father and a son (Lowrey methods notwithstanding).

Green Thinning

 

 

 

 

Harvest Musings

battle scars

As yet another memorable harvest draws to a close, I delight in sharing some of the bizarre things that have crept into my exhausted mind over the last couple of months.  It can be a grind at times, so pulling back the curtain a bit to reveal some of the lighter moments keeps me from taking it too seriously.

While conducting a final cull of rotten berries in our original planting of Pinot Noir early in September, I found myself uttering a few choice words at these cursedly tight clusters.  It culminated in a rather aggressive flick attempt with my clippers to remove a rotten berry which, in turn, produced a wild spray of acidic juice directly into my face.  This moment surely sums up the give and take relationship I have with these old vines, a relationship that began to take human form.

In fact, as I wiped the burning juice from my eyes, I surmised that these five rows are like the brother I never had.  We are of similar age (although I am slightly older and wiser) and we have grown up on this farm together.  We compete for my parents’ attention and can get very jealous of one another, yet our individual success is completely reliant upon the other.  There are epic fights, but if anyone else is critical of my Pinot vines – I’ll kick their ass.  We always have each other’s back because our tangled roots run ever deep in this soil.

While pacing around the barn on a weekend that saw a forecasted 15-20mm of rain balloon to a record 86mm, I realized just how tied to the weather my mood becomes during harvest.  A rainy day may as well be the end of the world in my mind.  Everything is planned around them, you can’t do anything during them, and nothing good ever comes as a result of them!  I become consumed with regrets:  Should we have picked earlier? Did I just ruin everything good I’ve done all year by letting them hang through a hail storm?  How long will this field take to dry out?

Conversely, when the sun is shining – so am I.  Strutting around the farm with a wide smile and time enough for everyone, I ooze positivity.  It doesn’t get any better than walking through a block of ripe, clean grapes knowing you could pick them whenever you like.  I taste each berry thoroughly and make a mental note of which vines and rows will make the cut this year.  As you are probably aware, this happens with extreme rarity.

More often I’m faced with a scenario akin to the following:  We finish pressing Pinot Noir and I finally have a chance to get out and take a good look at the Riesling.  I walk over to the block and think to myself, “Ahh, the patience of Riesling…I can leave them to the end every year and they never let me down!”

It only takes few minutes to realize I’ve waited WAY to long to thin out these vines and now I’ve got a tinderbox of Botrytis on my hands.  I flash back to those times during the year when I’d walk by the Riesling and pay them but a fleeting glance before moving on to more pressing concerns.  Perhaps I knew deep down that the day of reckoning would come soon enough.

It is reminiscent of a scene from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure where Pee-Wee is faced with saving all the pets from a burning pet store.  Of course he saves the cute puppies and bunnies first, each time running past the terrarium of snakes with a look of terror that I know all too well.  The scene ends with a hysterical Pee-Wee running out of the store with fistfuls of snakes and collapsing to the ground.

Before I know it I’m covered in a sticky lather of sweat and juice, hurriedly extricating botrytized clusters of Riesling with my bare hands and high-stepping to the end of the row to hurl them into the headlands…

Crazy, you say?

I know you are, but what am I.    (P.W. Herman 1985)