Spring. Chardonnay shoots at 20 cm.

There were moments this winter when I thought I'd lost every vine.

A wild Scotsman on the west coast told me that for his first eight seasons he was sure he'd killed everything each winter. Then he planted another 30 Ha on a different farm and went through the same process for another five years.

Our god-send of a viticulturalist Mr. A. Teubes (for now we call him "King of All Vines") laughs at me each July when I call him because I'm sure I've got woolly buds when I should be spraying bud break...he then tells me to relax and I send him a cell phone pic of the buds...then he laughs and tell me to wait another two weeks before spraying...he's been right for four years. But what did I do this year, I panicked for two weeks.

In a way we panic from just prior to bud burst, into the flowering, into the fruit set, the green drop, the rising sugar levels and in truth through the length and breadth of the whole season…until well into winter.

So why do we do this silly madness? Is it fun? Is it wonderful to live so close to the land? We love Baboons? Flocks of thousands of red wing starlings make my heart soar? I enjoy 2am to 4am for strolling around the house and re-filing my cd collection? I like watching “The Dirty Dozen”, again (I’m currently on viewing number 247)?

We "do this" madness for many reasons mostly though we're proud to give something back to the world that has no additives and cannot be made in a Chinese factory and really, THE WINE IS SO GOOD. We "do this" simply and plainly, for the wine.

It is about the place. It is about the climate. It is about the vine. Mostly though, its about those little grape bunches. Perfect and un-irrigated. The soil and sunlight transformed into wine.

With that,

I'm off to have a glass of 2006 summer-time sunlight.

Love,

Jake