Ubiquitous Vineyards

In search of a slight change of scene, we drove through the Sonoma Valley to a regional park near Glen Ellen. From the parking lot we climbed a hill and walked along the ridge which rises above the valley. The ridge is fairly heavily planted with oak trees but peeks through the trees reveal rolling hills along the valley floor which are solidly planted with vineyards.

The harvest is beginning with verjus, immature grapes which are turned into a tart juice made for cooking. It isn't fermented so contains no alcohol. The name comes from the French, vert jus meaning green juice.
It is less acidic than lemon juice or vinegar and is a nice addition to cocktails, dressings and sauces.

The champagne grapes will be harvested next followed by the rest of the white varietals. The serious crush begins when the red wine grapes reach the proper BRIX (sugar) level and are harvested, often at night when temperatures are cooler to preserve the grapes' color and flavor. The grape bins are beginning to pile up outside the wineries and soon the roads will be filled with trucks transporting grapes  to the crush. They will be dumped on a table or conveyor belt, picked over for stems and leave, and on to the crusher which breaks the berry without but not the seeds. The story goes that this is the phase that used to be accomplished by people with bare feet stomping  barrels of grapes. They have machines to accomplish the task now.

Once crushed the mixture goes into fermentation tanks where it rests until the winemaker determines that it has developed the right blend of flavor and alcohol.

When we got home I determined to cut back the salvia which was growing so successfully that it was falling over and crowding out other plants. I is absolutely teeming with honey bees and bumblebees so I had to move carefully. They aren't particularly agressive and are intent on gathering pollen so will tolerate the branch they are on being cut down, but  I decided not to push my luck after about an hour when the path was piled high with cuttings. I tried to take a picture which would capture the bees, but the camera just can't see them the way we do. 

I like the honey bees but I hate the yellowjackets, particularly aggressive wasps. There are a lot of them this year and John has baited traps and hung them near places where we like to sit. The traps do help but it's tempting fate to take food outside so we limit ourselves to dry white wine. Speaking of which....