In search of the Holy Grail. photo by Andy Katz

Thursday, January 29, 2004: Just finishing up the last of the winter pruning. With no leaves to obscure ones' view it is a really good time to evaluate the previous year's growth. Vineyards seem to establish a growth rhythm and repeat it to some degree regardless of the variable of each year. Certainly it has to do with factors such as fog patterns, water holding capacity of the ground, and variety. Certainly things I have not yet imagined.

What is a kick however is what we do imagine out there in the zen of the field. Mostly the fantasy is about the upcoming growing season and then the harvest and having perfect conditions.... time for another 1994...and it is a good thing that we do have this sense of optimism rather than look backwards and recall the difficulties of past vintages. Each one with its own signature (read that as frustrations and challenges).

As the pruning is completed it is time to take to the road again and visit my friends in the market place. I hear that the mood is upbeat and economic recovery is in the wind.... I will report back, Eugenia

Previous Journals:

Thursday, January 1, 2004: Happy New Year!
What a remarkable week this has been... It started in the wee hours of Monday and just has not stopped... What? The SNOW!... Now before you buy up all California wines available today as global cooling chills the wines of the future let me tell you that I am in Oregon, not California. My family tells me that it is pouring rain in the north bay area and that is just as we want it. But this snow... although this past week in Oregon started with snow on the roadways, by midday all roads were passable. But today, the first day of the new year has been quite different. It was snowing at day break, at breakfast break (which included waking up to fresh baked raisin cinnamon bread), at lunch break... etc. We WERE having friends in for lunch today... So, now you can imagine the dinner ahead as we had planned a day long feast. Could not pass up the chance to frolic a bit in this fresh fallen drift so donned boots, jacket, hat, mittens, and trekked outside... to find to my surprise a warm, embryonic, soft translucence to the evening. The white reflection held the dark at bay and the quiet made me feel as if I was under water... and that crunch. All the winds have stopped and the stillness is relaxing. A few kids and dogs run wild. The unexpected warmth makes me think of a new grape bud and how we freeze it to keep it warm. That irony of frost protection that has us start up the sprinklers when the temperature hits 30 degrees F and put a protective coating of frozen water around a bud, that is constantly freezing/melting at the point that creates heat... A marvel of science and nature. Ah yes... my new year's resolution(s):

1) Stop writing my journal entries in my mind's eye and follow through with my commitment to my web site... 2) Spend more time perfecting the quality of my relationships... (that damn work ethic gets in the way... ) 3) When traveling for business include some non-work related cultural experience (so... more duo and less solo travel!) 4) Hmmmm... there must be something in here about diet and exercise... 5) Enjoy the freedoms I have now because one by one they are being taken away 6) Get out from my own skin and walk in another's from time to time

The snow continues to fall and we will now move on to the next course... another tasty vittle and lovely bottle of wine will ease us into the year 2004. May this new year include all the things that you hope and desire and include many surprises not yet in your dreams. In Pinot Veritas, Eugenia

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Sunday, September 28, 2003: The last of the fruit is in the barn and what an unusual vintage this has been! No excuses from this end as to the long silence between March and now.

The spring was very cold, very wet, and very long. The lovely warm and wooly spring days of May simply did not happen. The weather during bloom was horrendous with two days back to back over 100 degrees F (the 27th and 28th of May) and then on the 29th of May a storm blew through. Temperatures dropped up to 40 degrees F and fierce winds knocked the stamens right off the flower. The result was the worst case of berry shatter that I have ever seen (to emphasis the extent of damage let's reference my Dutton/Jewell Vineyard which yielded 1.1 ton per acre with NO thinning).

Once we hit June/July it was straight sunshine day in and day out, relentless and hot. The fog was hiding in some other region until mid August. By that time all the thinning (where appropriate) was finished (the days were so hot that I had to hide in the Healdsburg library from 1-4 PM to avoid heat stroke).

Harvest has been slow and steady. The week of the 15th of September was hot to very hot and thankfully ripened up many marginal vineyards. I started picking on Monday the 15th and leisurely brought in fruit through the 28th. Sugars were all over the board, acids were just as unpredictable. All in all a year that was very much one-day, one vineyard at a time. As to wine quality... only time will tell. The light tells me that it is football and pumpkin time... .E

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