Vineyard Netted and Ready for the Birds....

Well, we're not hoping for birds but we get our share. And yellowjackets too. It's that time of year and this time the netting was done with the help of the crew from the Huasna Valley Farm. These folks chipped in and made it all look simple - I drove the tractor and they did the rest!

Today, I worked with Terrie to fine tune the ends of the rows by adding bricks to pull back the nets from the fruit. Birds will team-up and weigh down the nets to get access to the ripe fruit. Those birds know every trick in the book - and were working to keep one step ahead. Yellowjacket traps are set, Terrie has about 12 traps that she keeps filled with cat or dog food. Seems to be working great right now.

A dry year and now very windy. Not hot, but mild and dry. Should be an outstanding year for our estate wines.

We also have a bunch of new pictures for the series "Where Did You Wear Your Toucan Wines Hat". This is a picture of Dave Smith, of St. George Spirits - this is the high-end distillery we use to produce brandy from our estate wines and for our Toucanet.

To view additional pictures, join us on Facebook - click here. To get your own Toucan Wines Hat, visit our website.

Good weather and lots to do...

We've enjoyed a few days of warm weather and still expect a few more. A little hot for this time of the year, but its good for the vines and the garden too.

We've been working on hoeing the vineyard and next I'll begin suckering the unwanted growth on each vine. I made two passes through the vineyard spraying catfish emulsion and I've now mowed the vineyard twice.

We had a very good time at the Taste of Huntington Beach event and met many new folks and now new customers -- I'm looking forward to our next event later this month in Newport Beach.

Remember we still offer $1 shipping and we still have a little 06' Estate Petite Sirah and the award winning 05' Estate Zinfandel ready to ship to customers.

Frost and Heat - a Damaging Mix

Frost from the past two weeks has taken a toll on early leafing vines - mostly our estate Petite Sirah. A little damage on early Zinfandel too. This week we face the extreme heat that arrived Sunday and will last three days. This heat may burn young leafs and damage further the vines struggling to recover from frost damage. This is the first real frost damage to the vineyard in several years, last time we had only a few vines burned near the road - this year especially damaged were young re-plants of Petite Sirah that replaced the hard freeze of three years ago.