Véraison

The French do have a certain way with words. Véraison describes the time when the grapes begin to turn color. I stopped by these old vines leaving the  the clusters of grapes interspersed amongst the leaves. Newer vines are usually cane or spur pruned with the canes trained along a wire so that all the grapes hang from the bottom row of branches. Usually one or two more branches are trained to grow above them providing shade for the ripening clusters.These are head pruned old vines of Pinot Noir grapes which won’t be ready for harvest for another few weeks.

The harvest usually begins in Sonoma county with the Champagne grapes which are small, and reach the right Brix level or sugar count earlier.Of course the resulting drink cannot be called 'champagne' an name reserved for only those grapes grown in the Champagne region of France. Here, it is usually called 'sparkling wine'

 Soon we will be seeing the grape trucks rumbling around, which will be a welcome change from the parade of gravel trucks grinding up the hills around here. They are a familiar sight all over the place. As rebuilding continues there seems to be a move on to change the topography of the whole county, if not for new houses than for more vineyards (or pot farms).

The weather people seem to love making the extreme weather sound even more extreme than it already is. There have been breathless reports on the news about ‘record breaking temperatures’ and ‘highest temperatures yet since this day......two years ago.’ Seems kind of par for the course to me, but it does tend to limit any serious activity...especially outside, to early morning. We were sitting on our porch last night at 9pm in shorts and tee shirts.

School started yesterday in Santa Rosa and I saw a couple of women in Target with two full carts full of popsicles which they were taking to Santa Rosa High school just to help the students cool off. I watched them load them into their car in the boiling hot parking lot and hoped they got them to the school before they were nothing but a sticky puddle in the back of the car.

We moved here to get away from the summer fog and to be able to sit outside and eat. It’s ironic that now it is sometimes too HOT to sit outside until the sun goes down....