Weekly Roundup for November 30th, 2014: Giving Thanks, Giving Back, and Getting Wet (Hopefully)

This Thanksgiving week, some of the things that most intrigued us in the world of wine do had to do with thanks (and giving) but also, as we look forward to a week of potentially signficant rain, at our drought and at a growing movement toward dry-farmed vineyards.  Finally, for our thought piece, I wanted to share a lyrical view of our beautiful Central Coast.  The highlights:

Giving Thanks

• This Thanksgiving week, we were happy to have our wines recommended in two places: our local San Luis Obispo Tribune (recommending our Cotes de Tablas) and Men's Journal (recommending our Patelin de Tablas).  But just as much, we appreciated seeing the Thanksgiving newsletter from Talley Vineyards -- fellow Central Coast flagship, and a winery that I respect enormously both for the tremendous wines they make and for their dedication to their local community -- describing what several of their key people would be drinking.  Yes, Tablas Creek made an appearance.  Like with our own Thanksgiving recommendations, I think it's great that Central Coast wineries are comfortable being so publicly supportive of each other.

Giving Back

• Must! Charities has been doing amazing work in our local community since its founding in 2012.  This week, they announced a quarter-million dollar, four-year program in support of Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Luis Obispo County.  We will be supporting their efforts with a "must! month" in December. All month, we will donate a dollar to must! for each bottle of wine we sell out of our tasting room, online, or by phone.  Last year, we donated over $7000.  I hope we'll top that this year!  For more about how you can support must!'s remarkable efforts, click here.

On Drought and Dry-Farming

• At the beginning of November, I went up to San Francisco for an event co-sponsored by the Commonwealth Club and the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF).  It began with a panel discussion on the feasibility and benefits of dry-farming wine grapes and concluded with a walk-around tasting of dry-farmed wines (you can listen to the panel discussion here). With our current drought, I'm seeing renewed interest in the potential of dry-farming grapevines.  This has to be a good thing, on both quality and sustainability fronts (I've written about our own reasons for dry-farming) and it was great to see the Los Angeles Times write a good piece on this small but growing movement.
• Also this week, we got some good news from the NOAA, which has updated their forecast for this winter and is now saying "above average rainfall is now predicted". Read more »
• Finally, on the rain front, we're looking forward to what is forecast to be a very wet week.  It is being awaited with great anticipation by the entire Paso Robles wine community.

Vineyard Ass-ets

• We were excited to learn this week that we're not the only winery with two donkeys on staff! On the Cline Cellars Facebook page we met Fancy (left) and Pudding (right).  If you don't follow fellow California Rhone pioneer Cline (home region: Carneros) on social media, you should; their posts are consistently among the cleverest in the world of wine. And, they have donkeys.

Food for Thought (Beverage for Thought?)

• We'll conclude this week with a paean to the Central Coast, written by UK Native, Napa resident and Master of Wine student Clare Tooley.  In her piece "Saints, Rogues and Kerouac" she writes of Paso Robles: "Paso is colourful and rogue-ish. Wild still, definitely not tamed. In vogue right now but definitely carving its own path."  The whole piece is worth reading: beautifully written and, I thought, right on.  Read more »

What We're Drinking with Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  It has yet to be successfully commercialized, and it centers around family and food.  What could be better!  The celebratory nature of the meal suggests that several bottles of wine will be consumed, but the varied nature of the foods on the table -- and the fact that many of the foods have some sweetness -- makes pairing a single wine challenging.  Yet, whether reds, whites or even rosé, Rhone-style wines are good bets.  The reds tend to be fruity and open-knit, while the whites tend to be rich and unoaked.  All these characteristics are friendly with a Thanksgiving dinner.  In fact, last year, we had four different major newspapers suggest Tablas Creek wines for Thanksgiving... and each of the four suggested a different wine!

To get a sense of some of the different options out there, I asked several members of the Tablas Creek team to share what they're pairing with their Thanksgiving feasts this year (whether Tablas Creek or otherwise).  Here is what they shared:

Neil Collins, Executive Winemaker
I will be drinking a Domaine Weinbach Cuvee Theo Riesling. It is delicate yet has a lushness and balance that will be perfect for our thanksgiving table. Chances are high that there will also be some hard cider consumed!

Lauren Cross, Marketing Assistant
I'm starting with Vermentino because it is bright and fun and low in alcohol- a perfect socializing wine.  Our Tablas Creek Vermentino is my mother's favorite and since she is the main chef of our Thanksgiving I like to make sure to keep her happy!  With our meal I will serve our 2010 En Gobelet which is my favorite.  I love to share this wine and tell the story of the dry-farmed en gobelet pruned vines this wine comes from.  En Gobelet is such a nice complement to a wide variety of fruit with the bright Grenache flavors, earthy Mourvedre and depth of the Syrah and Tannat.  

Darren Delmore, National Sales Manager
We're goin' country with a smoked Texan brisket and two magnums with enough fruit and spice to match it: 2013 Miraval Cotes de Provence Rosé and 2004 Two Hands "Deer in Headlights" Barossa Valley Shiraz. 

Tyler Elwell, Cellar Master
I’m going to be having Whitcraft Winery 2013 Pinot Noir Santa Ynez Valley Pence Ranch Mt. Eden Clone.  It’s young, fresh and acidic. With 12.2 alcohol and it’s light body it’ll complement the variety of fixins on the table.

Chelsea Franchi, Assistant Winemaker
If I had any of these bottles left, my choice for Thanksgiving dinner (or any special dinner, for that matter) would be the Ridge 2011 Monte Bello Chardonnay.  With a gorgeous weight and fullness of texture, it is a wine that can certainly be enjoyed on its own before the feast, but drinking it without food seems like a shame.  With the beautiful balance it carries itself with, it can certainly pair with turkey and stuffing - and anything else you may find on your table this Thanksgiving.  After thinking about this wine, I believe I may have to resupply!

Levi Glenn, Viticulturist
Freisa - an indigenous variety to Piedmonte in Northern Italy, which according to Jancis Robinson is related to Nebbiolo. Aromatically it shows lighter red fruits, such as strawberry and raspberry. On the palate it exhibits more tannin than you would expect due to its light color. The acidity is medium to medium plus. A great accompaniment to a Thanksgiving meal, the acidity cuts through the richer sides, and its inherent juiciness will keep you coming back. Tip: chill in the fridge for 15-20 minutes to mellow the tannins and accentuate the fruit. A joyful wine for a joyous day.

Robert Haas, Founder
We're having oysters as hors d'oeuvres and traditional roasted turkey for the meal. I would like a dry minerally, chalky, citrusy white for the oysters, such as the Côtes de Tablas Blanc 2012. I prefer the 2012 for this use because the 2013 is more exuberant.  I would like a dark rich earthy red wine to go with the turkey, so we're going with the 2003 Panoplie.

Sylvia Montague, Assistant Tasting Room Manager
I am breaking tradition this year and heading to the coast for some seafood and a great ocean view. I am sure there must have been some creatures from the sea served at that first Thanksgiving in the new world (and if not, there should have been!).  I will bring along a bottle or two of our fabulous whites, Esprit de Tablas Blanc and/or Viognier, as they are outstanding with everything from crab, lobster, scallops and fish and stand up well to most manner of preparations.

John Morris, Tasting Room Manager
It the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and I have no idea what wine we’re going to serve!  I can tell you that I’ll be stopping on my way home tonight and making some decisions on the fly.  Rather than a traditional Thanksgiving meal, we’ll be serving Thai food, so that changes the game considerably.  If turkey and stuffing were going to be front and center, I’d be looking for lighter-bodied reds (think Pinot Noir and Grenache-based blends), Rosé, or full, savory whites, such as the spectacular 2012 Esprit de Tablas Blanc.  If I was attending a large gathering, with the attendant danger of Aunt Martha spiking her wine with Fresca (or worse), I’d lean toward something a little easier on the wallet, like the 2013 Patelin de Tablas Blanc, which is really a superb wine at the price point.

As it is, I’ll be looking for off-dry whites for dinner, and maybe open an older Esprit de Beaucastel later in the evening.  I’ll let you know which vintage next time.

Madeline VanLierop-Anderson, Lab Specialist
My 2014 Thanksgiving wine selection comes from Jura, France.  Jura, a wine region located between Burgundy and Switzerland, is known for its distinct and unusual wines- this bottle certainly falls into a category of it’s own; Champ Divin 2013 Pinot Noir.

Like Tablas Creek, Champ Divin farms their vineyards by both organic and Biodynamic applications making this bottle a unique interest of mine.  This Thursday evening I will enjoy this Pinot with a honey cured spiral cut ham with sides of thinly sliced potatoes gratin, fresh green bean casserole, apple cranberry stuffing and my homemade cranberry sauce. 

As for a post meal beverage- I plan on opening a bottle of 2002 Delamotte Blanc de Blancs in undaunted faith that the San Francisco 49ers will “get stuffed” in feast- I mean Beast Mode by the reining NFL world champion Seattle Seahawks in their new critically acclaimed Levi stadium.  Although my wine is often red, my colors are Green and Blue- GO HAWKS!

As for me?
I'm going to be having dinner at my dad's house, so it sounds like I'll be enjoying some Panoplie.  Left to my own devices, I tend toward riesling and Beaujolais, and I try to pick the biggest bottle that I have available.  It's a party, after all... and nothing says party like a 3-liter bottle of wine!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Weekly Roundup for November 23rd, 2014: Natural Wine, Ancient Rocks, Knobbly Fruit & Thanksgiving

This week's Weekly Roundup is highlighted by a great thought piece on what makes wine "modern" or "traditional", and whether either of these have a relationship with the idea of "natural wine".  We've included a couple of our favorites of the many Thanksgiving wine recommendations omnipresent at this time of year.  And, of course, we check in with some members of our community who are doing cool stuff.  As always, please share in the comments what you like, and what you'd like to see different.

The bounty of (our) harvest

• We kick off this week's column with a gorgeous photo from Artisan Restaurant.  We've partnered with them on several dinners over the years, including one early this year which featured lamb from our property.  Their photo on Instagram (above) of some knobbly bright yellow quinces from one of our trees caught our eye.  We dropped some off there because we had many more than we had any idea how to use, and wanted to get them into capable hands.  This photo isn't an isolated event; there's beautiful stuff worth following on all of Artisan's social media feeds.  If you're wondering why we grow quinces (along with apples, pears, cherries, plums, peaches and apricots) they're a part of the increased biodiversity we've been working to integrate over recent years.

Something in the (ancient) water

• Our neighbor Halter Ranch posted a great photo (right, or on the Halter Ranch Facebook page for a high-resolution version) of one of the fish fossils that they found in their rocks and integrated into their winery building.  It's a great reminder that the soils that sit under our vineyards (and much of west Paso Robles) were deposited as seabed in the Miocene period (10-20 million years ago). These were lifted above the surface in the creation of the Santa Lucia Mountains quite recently, by geologic standards.  My dad wrote a great blog piece about our soils' history in 2011, if you're interested in learning more.

The 2014 Harvest

• We've given our opinions on the 2014 harvest for the last three months.  So, it was fun to read the Wine Spectator's roundup of what others are saying about California in 2014.  There's even one of my photos in there!  The take home message, for Paso Robles: "Notable concentration and depth across the board". Read more »

Is there a holiday coming up?

• Thanksgiving is the American holiday most dedicated to eating and drinking.  Yet, many traditional Thanksgiving foods aren't naturally friendly to many of the most popular American wines, given their questionable affinity to oak and high alcohol.  Happily, Rhones, both red and white, make classic pairings, and it's always a pleasure waiting for the pre-Thanksgiving wine columns suggesting Rhones as an accompaniment.  I thought Laurie Daniel's Rhones for Thanksgiving column for the San Jose Mercury News was particularly good this year, and was pleased to see that our 2012 Cotes de Tablas ("bright fruit with savory notes of wild herbs") was one of her suggestions.
• We weren't mentioned, but I still really liked Eric Asimov's Thanksgiving recommendation that the wine you choose should "Refresh the Palate". He highlights versatility and energy as two characteristics to look for in your Thanksgiving wine, and recommends an eclectic mix. I'm not sure I could find many of the wines he and his panel recommend (there are rewards for living in New York City, after all) but I do know that I agree completely with his basic advice. Read more »

An event to look forward to

• This week, the Paso Robles Rhone Rangers announced the details of their 2015 Paso Robles Rhone Rangers Experience. In the last seven years, this event has become a showpiece for the Rhone movement here, and it's a remarkable value: just $85 for the full slate of events, including a nine-wine seminar (this year led by the Wine Enthusiast's Matt Kettmann), a vintners lunch catered by Chef Maegen Loring, a grand tasting featuring some 50 Paso Robles Rhone wineries, and a silent auction that benefits the Rhone Rangers Scholarship Fund.  There's a $35 ticket for just the Grand Tasting, too. Details & tickets »

Food for Thought (Beverage for Thought?)

• Finally for this week I wanted to point you to a blog that is writing some of the most consistently interesting and erudite pieces in the world of wine today.  Elaine Brown of Hawk Wakawaka Wine Reviews this week tackles the questions raised by the ambiguity inherent in the definition of "natural wine".  We fall in her category 3 ("Wine growers and/or makers that use organic and/or biodynamic viticultural practices and/or less interventionist cellar techniques with few additives but do not define themselves with the movement of Natural wine") and are often dismayed by the reductive arguments on either extreme of the debate. Her conclusion -- that what matters is "if we’re trying to listen, and have a conversation" seems right on to me. Read more »

Worried about preserving an opened bottle? Just stay cool.

Over recent weeks, I've received several questions from people wondering how to best preserve a partial bottle of wine for future consumption.  Typically, they're wondering if they should invest in a system that replaces the air in the bottle with an inert gas, or in a vacuum system that removes the air from the bottle entirely.  They tend to be surprised when I suggest that they just cork the bottle up and put it in their fridge.

To begin, it's helpful to know what is happening to a wine once a bottle is opened and air begins to have access to the liquid inside. With the introduction of oxygen to the wine's surface, a complex series of chemical reactions begins, typically first with oxygen combining with phenols (flavor components) to form hydrogen peroxide, and then with the hydrogen peroxide interacting with ethanol (the alcohol in wine) to form acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde has a cidery aroma and a curious, flat texture.  For examples of the flavors, look to intentionally oxidized wines like sherry and madeira: the taste that distinguishes these beverages from traditional wine is their the elevated level of acetaldehyde.

[If you'd like a more thorough explanation of oxidation's causes and effects, I highly recommend Jamie Goode's 2008 piece for Somm Journal: Wine Flaws: Oxidation.]

Many wines benefit from exposure to oxygen, within reason.  This is particularly true with young red wines, which receive a high level of reductive compounds from the skins of grapes.  Adding some oxygen to these wines, either by decanting a wine or just by letting it sit in a glass after having been poured, will often liberate flavor compounds that are at first tied up by the reductive elements.  But eventually, all those reductive compounds are combined with oxygen, and even a young red wine will begin to oxidize and show the acetaldyhde in sherried, flat flavors.  And older red wines, and most white wines, have much lower tolerances for oxygen before beginning to show symptoms.

How long after opening do you have before a wine becomes unpleasantly oxidized?  For the most delicate older wines, which have likely already absorbed significant levels of oxygen through the slow breathing of their corks over decades, it may only be a few hours.  Most younger wines will give you several hours safely, and some robust red wines will last happily for a few days.  But eventually, all of them will start to show oxidation's undesirable effects.

Key to knowing how to slow down these symptoms is recognizing that oxidation is a chemical reaction.  Like most chemical reactions, the rate of oxidation is temperature-dependent.  Combine oxygen and wine at 70° (think room temperature) and oxidation happens relatively quickly.  Put them together at 40° and you slow the process dramatically.  And this is why the most effective way of slowing the process of oxidation once a wine has been exposed to oxygen is to chill it down.  Yes, it's as simple as putting the reclosed bottle in the fridge.  When you're ready to drink it, the next day or later in the week, if it's a red or a richer white, just take it out 20 minutes or so before you want to pour it and let it warm up a bit.

Note that you're not buying an indefinite amount of time by chilling down an opened bottle; cooler temperatures slow down the chemical reactions but don't stop them.  But if you get a week of drinkability rather than a day, as has been my general experience, you've made real progress.

Will the various systems that exchange the air in a partly-empty bottle for an inert gas (typically argon or nitrogen) help?  If the gas is being inserted into the bottle as the wine is removed (as in a typical wine in keg system, or with the Coravin) absolutely.  But if, like most at-home wine preservation kits, the inert gas is applied only after the bottle is partly emptied, they likely only help at the margins.  You're most likely to get benefit from these sorts of systems if you pour the wine out fairly swiftly and then replace the air in the bottle with that inert gas.  But it's often not practical to do that when a bottle is being passed around a table over the course of a meal.  Each time the wine is poured, oxygen is absorbed by the wine as it is sloshed around the emptying bottle, and after several pours, there's enough oxygen dissolved in the wine that the process of oxidation will continue even if there's a layer of inert gas applied to the surface.

Similarly, the vacuum pumps that remove oxygen from a bottle don't eliminate the oxygen that has already dissolved in the wine, and they have the added complication that they do cause the wine to respire carbon dioxide, which is typically in solution in wine as a by-product of fermentation.  This CO2 provides acidity in the wine, and removing it can make a wine taste as flat as oxidation would have.

One great technique, if you know or suspect you'll only finish half a bottle, is to have an empty half-bottle available, which you fill and cork (or screwcap!) right when you open your original bottle.  Because that wine has had only minimal exposure to oxygen and can't absorb any more because of the bottle's seal, you can typically preserve it for a week or more safely.  But it does take some planning.  If you find yourself with a partial bottle at the end of a leisurely dinner, don't stress.  Just reclose the wine bottle, and stick it in the fridge.

Weekly Roundup for November 16th, 2014: AVAs, Local Achievements, Veterans Day, Direct Shipping and Uncovering the Obscure

Last week, we debuted the Weekly Roundup, news from around the wine community that we thought worth sharing with you.  It's an admittedly eclectic mix, but we feel each thing that we've chosen warrants few minutes of your time.  It's also a work in progress, so please share in the comments what you like, and what you'd like to see different.  This week's list:

Some Great Press for Paso Robles and our new AVAs

• The Tasting Panel's Anthony Dias Blue visited Paso recently, just before Sunset's Savor the Central Coast in September. His article concludes with an exciting evaluation of our great town: "this sleepy region, once home to a few obscure, under-the-radar wineries, has transformed itself into the most exciting wine region in California".  The article also recommends wines from 15 top Paso Robles wineries, including our 2011 Esprit de Tablas Blanc and 2012 Mourvedre. Read more »
• On of our favorite blogs for the week came from Wine Spectator editor Mitch Frank, whose piece Wine Can Be So Complicated — And That's OK was a notably thoughtful musing set against the background of the recent approval of 11 new AVAs here in Paso Robles.  His conclusion -- that "while wineries, and journalists, need to work hard to make wine inviting for newcomers, that doesn't mean erasing what makes wine like few other beverages—it comes from someplace specific" sums up our thoughts pretty well.  I'm quoted in the article, and submitted a comment with a few more of my thoughts on the subject. Read more »

Something from Tablas Creek

• It was fun on Veterans Day to see the tributes to the many veterans in the wine community flowing through our social media feeds (for the intersection of the #wine and #veteransday hashtags on Twitter, check out this link).  We posted this 1944 Navy photo of Robert Haas, all of 17 years old at the time.  A sincere thank you to him and to all the many veterans and servicemembers, current and past, who have impacted our lives so substantially.

A Glimpse Behind the Scenes into the Business of Wine

• Wine marketer, expert blogger and consumer advocate Tom Wark was interviewed by ReasonTV, and the 3-minute video that resulted is posted on YouTube.  I spend a fair amount of time trying to shine some light on some of the more convoluted and counterintuitive laws that govern how wine is sold around the United States in my Legislation and Regulation series.  Tom's opening salvo: that "the only way to get them to begin to be repealed and reformed is to bring them to light" is absolutely spot on. Watch the interview »

Some Landmarks from our Neighbors

• Congratulations to Alta Colina Winery, who moved their first barrel into their new winery, on their estate which sits about 6 miles toward town from us, down Adelaida Road.
• And we loved this "then and now" photo from Epoch Estate, which has been thoughtfully rehabilitating their property atop York Mountain since they bought it a several years ago.

Paso Robles Beautiful

• We've been posting lots of photos of our fall foliage.  The photo above, which our friends at Cass Winery posted on their Facebook page, is one of the most impressive we've seen.  Too good not to share!

Food for Thought (Beverage for Thought?)

• We'll conclude this week with an article by Lettie Teague in the Wall Street Journal, entitled Dark Horse Wines: Great Finds in Odd Places.  As a winery who chose what was, at the time, an odd place (Paso Robles) to make odd wines (southern Rhone-style blends), we find comfort in her conclusion that because gatekeepers will naturally tend toward the conservative, "wine drinkers themselves must ultimately be the ones to pursue the unexpected, to eschew the tried-and-true".  She also suggests 5 wines, including one (a Pinot Noir from South Africa) imported by Vineyard Brands.  Read more »

Changing of the seasons

It's rare that in a single day you feel the changing of the seasons as dramatically as we did yesterday.  Last weekend was warm and sunny; it hit the mid-80's out here both Saturday and Sunday.  Even after the rain from a week ago, the overall feel was still of high autumn, even if the hillsides, if you looked closely, were softened and enriched by a new fuzz of green. 

Enter yesterday morning.  When I arrived at work, it was clear and sunny, if breezy and cool.  But by mid-morning, we had a fog bank cresting the Santa Lucia Mountains to our west:

A few minutes later, the fog started rolling across the sky in wisps and eddies, producing a flickering landscape alternating between bright and gloom.  A few photos, first looking down south over the vineyard:

and looking between two rows of Syrah:

By late morning we'd settled into a (really quite beautiful) semi-overcast condition, with bright skies but only occasional blue.  It brought out the fall colors in the vineyard quite remarkably.  Two views, both of which I recommend you click on to enlarge:

Finally, a picture that I posted on Facebook yesterday, but which I like so much I'm going to use it to finish this blog, showing the green shoots of cover crop, which thanks to the rain now snake between each row, ready to hold the soil in place when our serious precipitation arrives. Already the soil is darker and feels richer than it did just two weeks ago:

Today, the sun has yet to peek through.  There is humidity in the air.  We're forecast to get some sprinkles this week, with two wetter storms to follow in the next 10 days or so.  We're so ready.

Weekly Roundup November 9, 2014

by: Lauren Cross

We're excited to debut a new "weekly roundup" feature on the blog. As many of you know, we enjoy reading and sharing content on our various platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.  Each Sunday, we will be compiling our favorites from the last week, focusing on our friends in our community, as well as sometimes a thing or two we've come up with ourselves and posted elsewhere. Here is this week's collection of our favorite wine related media posts.  Cheers to another winederful week from Paso Robles wine country, and please let us know what you think! 

Clever

What a clever idea for a coffee table!

https://www.facebook.com/ReverseWineSnob?fref=ts

  

 

Good News

A huge congratulations to the entire Adelaida team for this achievement!

http://vimeo.com/110624913

 

From TCV

We enjoyed the company of the Perrin and Haas families this week for our partner's meeting.  Just love Bob Haas' response in the comments of this post!

https://www.facebook.com/TablasCreek

 

Educational

A great tool for sharpening your ability to detect corked wine.

http://winefolly.com/tutorial/how-to-tell-corked-wine/

 

 

Humorous

 One of the funniest pins on pinterest ever!

 http://www.pinterest.com/pin/303993043571564892/

 

From Twitter

We've been enjoying some truly thrilling sunsets here on the central coast this week!

https://twitter.com/TablasCreek

Photo Essay: After the Rain

Last weekend, we received a glorious and much-needed 1.17 inches of rain.  Much of this came Friday night (Halloween) which wasn't great for the kids out trick-or-treating, but for those of us desperate for a wet winter, the rainfall was a treat indeed.  In between Saturday's showers, Lauren Cross got some great photos that captured the feel of that day beautifully: skies still mostly cloudy, soil colors deepened to warm blacks, sparkles of light from the drops of water still clinging to the vines and wires.  I wanted to share some of my favorites.  First, a look up one of our hills, with a great view of the changing skies:

Next, a close-up of a second-crop cluster, wet with raindrops from one of Saturday's many showers:

I love the brighter feel (as well as the colors the light brings out) of this shot of our chicken coop, caught when the clouds parted and the sun snuck through:

And finally, the shot we take so often, looking over Roussanne and Tannat blocks to the colors of Grenache Blanc and Syrah behind:

Our early rain has, if nothing else, put us all in a good mood as we get to watch the hillsides start to turn green.  With all the fruit safely in the cellar, the cover crop seeded and compost spread in the vineyard, it can get serious any time it likes.