Pick grapes, Fight fires, Pick grapes...

The rain will arrive today. At Pina Vineyard Management, the troops have been working hard and putting in long hours to get the grapes harvested before the rains come.  It has been a very difficult farming year for Napa Valley grape farmers.  Mother Nature has not been cooperative, but even so, we're wrapping up harvest. Tuesday night, Mother Nature dealt us another blow.  Winds were responsible for causing a fire that burned down a house in the Soda Canyon area of the Silverado Trail.  Efforts to contain the fire involved over 100 firefighters and many of those firefighters are volunteers with jobs in the wine industry.

My brother, Davie, was one of them.  He had worked a long day and was at home when the call came in @ 8:30 PM for the fire. As tired as he was, he got dressed and headed out.  He went to the Rutherford Volunteer Firemen's sub-station (about a half mile North of his house) and drove the Water Tender Firetruck to the fire. The water tender is one of the two firetrucks that was parked at Pina Napa Valley for several years (Hence, our Firehouse vineyard/label). He was released from the fire at 3:45 AM on Wednesday.  Later that day, a KGO film crew caught up to him to record a very brief soundbite.

The interview might have lasted a bit longer if Davie hadn't told them he just didn't have the time. He still had grapes in the field that needed to go to a winery.

Pick grapes, fight fires, pick grapes...

The Setting Moon over the Mayacamas Mountains

Moon over Mayacamas

Photo courtesy of Joe Bauer

I was on my way to work at 5:44 this morning when my cell phone rang.  I noted that the incoming call was from my good buddy, Joe Bauer.  Since Joe is not usually vertical at that time of the day, my first thought was that something bad had happened.  I was relieved when he asked me if I had seen the full moon. He said he called me because he knew I'd be up. I briefly thought about taking some pictures but knew that Joe would be taking better pictures than I could.  And ain't that a great one?  (Be sure to click on it to enlarge)

According to the Farmers' Almanac, the June full moon is the Full Strawberry moon:

"Full Strawberry Moon – June This name was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. Also because the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June . . . so the full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!"

To checkout all the full moon names, click on this link:

http://www.farmersalmanac.com/full-moon-names/

Bottling Day at Piña Napa Valley

June 9th was bottling day at Piña Napa Valley. 

Since we're not big enough to justify having our

own bottling line, the bottling line comes to us.

Macario on the forklift.

Inside the trailer, things are a bit tight.

This machine is putting the foils on the bottle.

This machine is "spinning" the foils on the bottle.

We don't have paper labels, or the bottling line

would be placing those on the bottles, too.

Here are the large format Mimbre bottles. 

The Mimbre package design was the

first choice of 3 of the 4 brothers

(Okay, I'm warming up to it).

It's hard to visualize the size of the large format

 bottles from the pictures, until you place a standard

750 ml Cahoots bottle in front of them.

Our winemaking team:

Anna Monticelli & Macario Montoya

Photos provided by John C. Piña