The summer solstice, the longest day of the year, is the peak of the explosion. The crescendo. The summer solstice marks the end of the first half of the season—the expansion..
The winter solstice, the shortest day/longest night of the year, is the beginning of the period of dormancy and renewal, and starts the first half of the season. The vineyard work is slow and meditative. The vines are pruned (as the weather permits), trellises are repaired, and there is lots of inside time. The work day starts at 8:00 and ends at 4:30. It’s a time of rest and regeneration, for the vines, the wine, and us humans. By December 21 harvest and crush are a memory, the wine is in barrel, and the winery is clean and quiet.
A month or three later budbreak occurs, the vines need spraying, the cover crop needs mowing, and the suckers need to be removed. The different vineyards wake up in a fairly staggered order, and the work is manageable. The day starts at 7:00, but Saturdays are still with the family.
As the days lengthen, and the nights shorten, and heat starts, the leaves on the vines start to really grow. Faster and faster. The new growth needs to be sprayed. Leaves around the grape clusters need to be pulled off. The soil needs to be cultivated. The shoots need to be tucked into the wires. The suckers need to be removed again. Fruit needs to be thinned. The vines need to be hedged off as they get too tall. The madness really kicks in. The day starts at 6:00, and ends at 7:00. Saturdays no longer belong to the family. Sometimes neither is Sunday.
The cycle is about expansion. More light. More heat. More growth. More work. I was once told that “the difference between a good farmer and a bad farmer is two weeks.” Simply keeping up with the logarithmic expansion is much of the key to a successful year in the vineyard. The drum beats…we need to keep up.
At some point, though, one starts to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The heat and the light take their toll, and the vines start to slow down a bit. The soil dries out. The fruit starts to size up and the vine notices it, and starts to shift its focus from leaves to fruit. The first day after the summer solstice is a bit shorter. The second half of the year has started. The season of ripening. Of fruition.
At this point the vines are basically set up as best as they are going to be, the fruit is what it is, and the entire focus is about to change. From pruning until now we have been focused on guiding a balanced and healthy vine. As of today, that work is done. There is some touchup and fine tuning, but finally, as I sit down to write these seasonal notes, I can take a deep breath and try and remember who I am, who my family is, why we are here, and any other deeper questions that have not been permitted to surface while I have been so focused on surfing the spring wave.
Our 2005 red and 2006 white wines are bottled—another spring activity—the 2004 red is released—and the 2006 red is responding to the warmer weather by transitioning from infantile wine to a young version of what it will be going forward. Winemaking and grape growing requires shepherding at least five vintages at once—the current release, another vintage which is aging in bottle, another vintage still in barrel, this current year in the vineyard, and the care we are taking in the vineyard to assure that next year will be successful as well—but each of those years, though at a different place in its path, responds to the seasonal rhythms of expansion and contraction.
The power of understanding and predicting that rhythm is, I believe, why it seems that every “primitive” culture built some sort of astronomical calendar. Wine is primeval in many different ways, and its profound adherence to all of the ancient rhythms, both astral and “domestic”—e.g. the daily ritual of wine with dinner—is a significant part of what makes it so meaningful in our lives.