Celebrating the amazing 2025 wildflower season

I was hopeful that the conditions that have been so good for our cover crop growth and which helped keep our vines dormant until a couple of weeks ago would make for an amazing wildflower season. I'm happy to report that this is proving to be true. Witness the wall behind our winery, a riotous tangle of poppies, vetch, and mustard:

Spring is my favorite time in Paso Robles. The hillsides are green. The air is softer than it was during the winter, and the days warm and pleasant, but not yet the summer where everything feels like the contrast has been turned up too high. Nights can still be chilly, and we do worry about frost, but so far this spring we've been OK. Meanwhile, the vineyard is springing to life, with buds swelling, then opening, then bursting to leaf with remarkable speed.

But it's the explosion of color that is springtime in Paso Robles' calling card. The rain that came during the winter combines with the longer days to produce a month of proliferating wildflowers. The most visible of these flowers are the bright orange California poppies, our state's official flower. If you come to visit our tasting room, you can't miss them:

Purple vetch is an important part of our cover crop, providing protection against erosion and lots of biomass. Vetch's purple flowers are visible everywhere on the sides of the local roads, and even as we bring our cover crops under control, vetch vines rise to envelop the cordons:

In the areas we haven't yet tamed, purple flowers from phacelia and white flowers from daikon radish mingle with the oats, peas, and mustard to form head-high thickets:

The phacelia is supposed to be attractive to lacewings, one of our most important beneficial insects. I didn't see any of them but they were definitely attractions for the many bees I saw:

But as usual, the most impressive wildflower arrays are the lupines. These purple clusters can cover the ground, swaying rhythmically and producing an intoxicating scent. They're unmissable on the sides of the roads out in the Adelaida District this year:

You'll notice those lupines when you arrive, because we have groves of them on both sides of our entrance. The photo above taken looking north on Adelaida Road from our driveway, while the below photo looks at the driveway from the south:

It's not only the roadsides that lupine is found. Deep in the vineyard, it's everywhere that it hasn't been crowded out by taller plants. And yes, there are grapevines in all that greenery, that we'll be excavating in coming weeks:

This explosion of spring color won't last long.  Soon, the weather will heat up and dry out, and the color palette will shift from winter green to summer gold. We've already started getting the cover crop mowed, crimped, and spaded into the vineyard so the vines can benefit from its nutrition and we do what we can to preserve the winter's water resources for the summer growing season. But if you're coming in the next month, you're in for a colorful treat.