Raging before the Rain

With torrential downpours looming on the Western horizon, we put in a solid effort on Monday to pick as much fruit still hanging on the vines.

California growers appear tormented by the appearance of rain and don't leave to chance the possibility of rot, chosing instead to pick the grapes a bit earlier rather than leaving them to hang.

My day was once again a wacky joyride around Spring Mountain, Chalk Hill and Russian River Valley. After hauling two tons to a custom crush facility outside Santa Rosa I staved off urges to swing by my favorite package store the Bottle Barn and headed up Chalk Hill Road to assist David with a pick at a small 4 acre organic Cabernet Sauvignon block. Picking out heavy I had to scoot to a nearby winery to pick up a few extra macro bins to fill. Maybe the first of our blocks to pick out higher than the estimated yield.

In the afternoon, we prepared for the rains at a new development covering the recently ripped and disked blocks with a quickcover seed mix and straw. Fall and winter monsoon like rains create ideal conditions for serious erosion and are a major concern in Northern California.

Hoping it might be an early afternoon was wishful thinking at best. How could I have guessed right? Rain also makes it hard to carry out certain vineyard jobs and therefore it was necessary to return a rental mini-excavator and then go back to the same vineyard to take soil samples before the cloudbursts.

By 6:30 I finished the nematode samples and heading home earger to consume choco-chip cookies and pumpkin beer.

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Today! Rain!!! At long last and all day long! A great reprieve from the sun. I never thought I would be so excited to see it rain all day.

Expecting to be moving equipment all day I recieved a call at around 7 am this morning asking if I would prefer to take a day off rather than working in the rain. Hell yaaaaaah! Sleeping in to the pitter-patter of the rain never felt so good.