Ocean Drive Along Highway 1 in Sonoma County

So many things were different this Memorial Day weekend. It definitely felt more somber with shelter-in-place orders. Its purpose also felt more glaringly obvious as we support brave healthcare professionals on the front line of our current enemy - COVID 19.

Every year when the weather warms up, the rains stop, and the roads dry up, we usually head to the coast in Sonoma County regularly to enjoy the mega sand box, calming sounds of crashing waves, hope of a whale siting, and the familiar cool, salty breeze. The change of scenery and perspective feels like a true adventure. With the parks still closed to encourage social distancing, we decide we would just drive by, take a look, and soak up the awesome Pacific views.

In Sonoma County, Highway 1 follows the coast for 56 miles (SF Chronicle). We focused on the stretch from the port town of Bodega Bay (Hitchcock’s The Birds, anyone?) to the delta where the Russian River meets the sea. For more history on the region, check the Sonoma County’s Coastal History.

In terms of wines and vines, the salty, cool air is vital to our micro-climate growing regions of the Sonoma Coast and Russian River Valley AVAs. Along with the foggy marine layer, the cloudy blanket that rolls inland and covers the sky in the evening, and rolls back out to sea in the morning, comes a daily cooling. This break in temperature gives the wine-grape-producing vines a much deserved and desired break. As the vines rest, the grapes maintain their flavor-balancing acidity. Cheers to that!

Here are some photos from our ocean drive.

Out with the Old

Note - this post was originally published 02.15.2015

After finishing taping & tying the vines - time to remove the brush and leave everything nice and clean.

A Feeling of Expectation

Note - this post was originally published 02.07.2015

Hope: a feeling of expectation and a desire for a certain thing to happen.  This week in the vineyard we spotted a leaf.  In the middle of winter, a pop of color, a sign of life, and the first look at the 2015 vintage. Cheers!

Picking Pinot Noir

Note - this post was first published 09.09.2014

It’s a great feeling when you get to see a project through. That’s how we felt last week when we had the opportunity to pick a Pinot Noir vineyard in the Russian River Valley that we had started working in January of this year.

When you work with grapes, the job is to nurture each vine individually and manage the vineyard as a whole. When to pick the finished product – ripe grapes – is actually up to the winemaker. Whoever is purchasing the grapes is using them as the raw materials for a beautiful wine. The growing season, elements, geographical features of the vineyard, and vineyard management techniques will all have effects on flavor. But the style of wine (bursting fruit flavors, bigger wines with higher alcohol contents vs. more traditional lighter alcohol wines with more restrained characteristics that might develop more over time, etc) starts with when to pick – at what levels the acidity and sugar exist in the grape.

Pinot Noir is a thinner skinned grape that ripens before thicker skinned grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Sirah.

Here’s to the 2014 vintage, cheers!

Russian River Valley Pinot Noir

Note - this post was originally published 06.29.2014

Grapes! Our pruning efforts paid off.  Here are some Russian River Pinot Noir grapes growing, growing, growing.