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The CDF is now reporting that the fire is 60% contained. It looks like a succesful stand was made at Redwood Road and Hazell Dell Road at the south edge of the fire and that area is no longer in danger. Windy Oaks has reported that they’ve been told they are no longer in danger.

The fire looks like it has been held at the northern edge of Uvas Canyon as well. There’s an access road to the summit, that’s one of the hardest hikes in the Bay Area, and a claring near the top of the canyon, and it appears crews have stopped the fire there. Keeping the fire out of the canyon would have been a priority.

Once a fire gets into a canyon in California it becomes critical. Canyons become wind funnels and push flames up the sides and out, spreading the fire as flames race up the sides. There was an advatage in this fire as the fire was entering the canyon from the top, and not the bottom, making it easier to stop.

It looks like the fire has been stopped in the critical areas near housing and crews will now work to contain it in the more wild areas.

Just caught up on reports of the fire and it’s mostly positive news. The weather has been cool, and the winds down the last two days. It looks like the crews were able to stop the fire at the junction of Hazell Dell Road and Browns Valley Road.

The Woodruff’s look to be out of any danger now. We’re planning on trying a visit tomorrow to see the vineyard, but suspect we won’t be able to get past the fire lines. I’ll send off a note today to Pete and Barbara to see how they are.

Reed’s Vineyard also seems out of danger now, and there’s no chance of the fire moving down Redwood Retreat Road and getting close to Martin Ranch or Fernwood Cellars.

The bad news is that it has moved into Uvas Canyon Park. The area just east of the park is more populated than the areas the fire has been burning in so far, and the construction is much older, which means very poor fire clearance and breaks. Almost all the housing in the area is build right into the forest.

Some good pictures of the density of the forest in the area are at :

http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/3Dbayarea/html/UvasCanyon.htm

For a referance point on where the fire is to us, check out our lable. The view from the label is the view from our backyard. The fire is burning right behind the twin peaks you see on the left side of the label.

We’re fine. Working the day jobs as normal today. Herardo was scheduled to work in the Woodruff Family Vineyard today, but I sent him to the Harrison Vineyard and Elandrich vineyard in Los Altos instead.

We could see Reed’s vineyard and home in the TV coverage last night. We consulted there and helped him put in the vineyard. He hasn’t called me, but I’m sure he evacuated. IF you check out this map:

map

He is located right where the color of the vegitation changes on Summit Road, south of the fire. There’s a cluster of houses there, with a good cleared fire area, so it’s likely that if the fire does reach that area it will be defended hard and they should be able to save the houses. The vineyard is organic, so all metal, but the plants could be lost. The big risk I think is that they’ve probably already drained his tanks so there’s no water left for the vineyard.

I just spoke with Barbara Woodruff. The are located on Brown’s Valley Road, just south of Avocado Road. If you check the map there you can see the terraced vineyard. It’s also an area that can be defended well. They have the tractor out now incase they need to help cut a fire line. They have heard a rumor that they are in an evacuation area, but they are going to stay. They can see the smoke on Redwood Road, and the helicopter activity, it looks to them to be about a mile away now. Barbara said it looks like they are changing out the fire crews as there have been trucks on the road for the last 20 minutes.

She seemed fine and we spent more time talking about who I’d sell the grapes too this year than the fire.

Windy Oaks actually looks to be a bit closer at this point. If you follow the junction where Brown’s Valley Road turns into Hazel Dell Road, and follow that, Windy Oaks is at Hazel Dell and Sweetwood. I got the email from Judy yesterday as well that they were fine. I suspect she’s just not wanting to answer the phone so hopefully they’ll send out an update today. They are in a bit more rugged and wooded area than the Woodruff’s with less open farm land around, so a slight higher risk.

The weather is cooperating though and winds are down, so keep all fingers crossed.

The winds are calmer this morning and blowing north and west. The fog came in last night, and news this morning was that the fire is 40% contained.

It looks like Reed’s vineyard and home are ok from the maps we’ve seen, but I still have not heard from him.

I’ll call the Woodruffs this morning to see how they are doing. The fire was about 1 1/2 from the vineyard there. A close call and a reminder how dangerous the mountains can be. I worry all the time driving through places like Ben Lomand, or Redwood Estates, just how bad a fire would be in one of the more populated pockets of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

It looks like this one’s impact will be relatively small. The weather cooperated and the area of the fire is very sparsely populated.

Stef and I both just spotted Reed’s house and vineyard in the coverage.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/feature?section=news&id=6158710

http://localhost/wordpress/winesvineyards/vineyards.html

It looks like the fire is 200-300 yards away. The house looked empty. The fire crews will not try and save the vineyard it won’t be a priority. At the current time they are saying it is zero contained and they are focusing on evacuations and protecting homes in immediate danger.

Please see Dave Tong’s Blog for the latest news on the fire.

It is very close to several projects we’ve consulted on and about 3 miles from the Woodruff Family Vineyard. Ash is falling in the vineyard there. I’ve spoken with Pete and Barbara today and they are ok at the moment.

We know this area very well and the rugged roads are one reason we have the 4wd Toyota FJ Crusier as our vineyard car.

Brown Valley Road is closed and I was going to send the crew there tomorrow to spray at the Woodruff’s but that of course is off now.

I keep a journal that I call the ‘Work Order Book’. It contains the plan and schedules for all nine vineyards we have under our full time management. (I don’t include the Haut Tubee vineyard, or the 20 plants at the local church we take care of.)

Each vineyard has a list of tasks, the dates they should be done by, how long it should take, any equipment or training needed, and any conditions that should be met. For instance it says, “don’t spray Sulfur if the temps are over 90 degrees’.

Millie, Gerardo, and I each have a copy, and I keep it updated on a monthly basis. I mark off tasks as they are done, and insert maps, instructions, or notes that the crew will need. The Haut Tubee vineyard has actually turned into a training ground. Since everything happens in that vineyard a week or two before the others, I’m able to have the crew come over and we go over the upcoming tasks in detail.

We even let the roses get powdery mildew this year on purpose so that the crew could see it in all its stages and know what to look for in the vineyards. We’ve sprayed the roses now though, don’t want to miss out on Spring roses totally.

Monday I updated the Work Order Books, and guess what? We are totally caught up and on schedule. In each vineyard the plants have begun to flower, so now we just leave them alone and try not to disturb them at all.

There’s work to do in the winery, but for the next two weeks, it’s time for a break in the vineyards!

About 4 weeks ago I signed up on myspace. Stef had signed up because her brother Hans had signed up and sent her a note. So I thought I’d sign up too. What a pain in the ass the site was. After fighting with the set up process for 45 minutes, then spending 15 minutes figuring out how to get this Tom guy off my friends list I sent Stef a note:

“I’m on myspace now, you can make me your friend.”

to which she replied:

“I’m on facebook dumbass.”

🙂

So off to facebook a went. That was a marginally less stupid sign up and set up process and there was a feature to actually find people I already know who were on facebook. So I sent notes off to about a dozen people and had about a dozen people add me in. Stef even posted on my ‘board’:

“Facebook = Lamebook“.

Feeling the web 2.0 love.

But I gave it a try and I think I’ve learned I am squarely in the generation that this stuff is not meant for.

I’ve still got those 10-12 people linked on facebook, but I find the site about as compelling as Miracle Whip. I’ve got no reason to go there or use it, and it doesn’t really beat actually talking to those 10-12 people. I’d rather invite them over, open a bottle of wine and catch up with them, than read what they did today on line.

Myspace, well that’s ‘Lameface‘. I’m proud to be friendless. Not that I don’t get offers every few days from ‘Rachel’, or ‘Lisa”, to come be their friends and look at the naughty pictures they took, but I really didn’t need another way for SPAM to reach me. I do take a certain joy though in marking those invites as SPAM. It always amazes me that their ‘profiles’ have notes from 10-15 guys who added them as friends with such witty commentary as ‘Yo baby, thanks for lookin me up’. Which brings me back to the Miracle Whip commentary as in, “these guys are dumber than Miracle Whip.”

So, you can send me an add request. I might get to it. You might even be the first myspace person to not be a porn site, but I’d still rather invite you over for a bottle of wine.

Time for a quick update on shipping.

We’ve released all orders for shipment. Everything is now either delivered, on its way, or holding at the shipment warehouse waiting for some state requirement and will ship as soon as the state in question approves it. Only one exception and that is a single order to Missouri, which will go out Monday.

Here is the breakdown on holds:
New York, New Jersey and Michigan: All pending state label approval. This should happen no later than 6/1 and the wines will release from the warehouse as soon as the label is approved.

Florida and Virginia: The Syrah label has been approved, the Haut Tubee has not. If your order included just Syrah, it’s shipped. If it included both wines, it’s pending still, also until 6/1.

We still have wine left if you have an order form you’ve been holding on to. Not a ton, just about 5 cases we can still release.

Last night was one of the highlights of the winemaking job.

Our friends parents were visiting from Canada and requested a winery tour, so we overlapped them with a winery appointment for a couple visiting from New York. What would have been a routine evening after work ended up being a very special night for us.

We greeted our six guests, toured the vineyard site and winery, and opened four bottles of wine to taste through. Paul opened the Chaine d’Or Chardonnay, Stefania Syrah, Haut Tubee, and Uvas Creek Cabernet. In addition to the bottled wines, Paul pulled several barrel samples for everyone.

Paul entertained the couple from New York while I answered questions and visited with our friends and their parents. For two hours we talked about the weather, grape varieties, childhood memories of rolling hills and prairies, back yards with grape vines, processing, bottling, labeling, art, music, alcoholism, social eating, aromas in wine, anything and everything.

We sent two partial bottles home with the parents, dropped off the opened Haut Tubee bottle with Jerry to drink since he had not tried it yet, and took the leftover Chardonnay with us to sushi.

Figuring it might be tough to get a spot at the sushi bar, our back up plan was to call and order a pizza. As luck would have it, there were several seats at our favorite sushi house; Tomo Sushi.

We brought in a bottle of Haut Tubee for Jun, the chef. He opened it right away and poured for the nine of us sitting there and we also passed around the last of the Chardonnay. The party was on a roll and we were loud and boisterous having a great time. Paul pulled another bottle from the car and some business cards for the folks that wanted to know where they could buy our wine.

It was so much fun meeting our neighbors and talking about growing up in the valley, and hearing their memories of the landscape before high tech took over and the population growth. We must have been there for nearly 3 hours carrying on, eating, drinking, laughing. An evening of much conviviality and joy.

I’ve blogged before about the coming together of mixed people and having the differences of lifestyles, opinions, backgrounds, political and/or religious views, all mesh over good food and good wine, and in this case some sake, and beer too.

Cheers,
Stefania