An issue with solar panel fields is the amount of land they can take up. You've maybe seen solar panels over parking lots. What if you could put them on farmland?
Agrivoltaics is using solar panels in conjunction with farming to turn the shade from the panels into a positive. A positive, get it? I'm pretty charged by the potential here.
To some, California wine and Napa wine are the same. That is, when they think of premium California wine, they are focused on Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. This isn't the reality of California wine.
The invasive plant-hopping Spotted Lanternfly, indigenous to Asia, has made its way to the eastern U.S., probably via a cargo ship from Asia in 2012 into Philadelphia. It has since migrated into 19 eastern states. It will eventually hop a train, or some other mode of transportation, to the rest of the country.
Its reproductive rate and ability to live off of many plants, makes it is unlikely that we can eradicate the Lanternfly. This is bad news.
Definition: AVA = American Viticultural Area, aka an appellation. An AVA is an officially recognized grape-growing area in the U.S. Examples include Napa Valley and Willamette Valley.
When someone asks, What's the difference between Napa and Sonoma? I would say that Sonoma has a wider range of grapes grown and styles made. Napa is known for Cabernet Sauvignon, with Chardonnay a distant second. Sonoma County wine regions showcase the diverse climates and soils, resulting in an impressive variety of wines and styles.
May is the month this happens in the Northern Hemisphere.
You mean this isn't what you're looking for when you clicked on the title?
Actually, a few varieties of grape vines do have male and female vines. The main one is Vitis rotundifolia, or muscadine, that grows in the southern U.S.
Commercial vineyards may still need bees for pollinating their cover crops.
Self-pollination does allow reliable and timely pollination, and it helps maintain the best traits. It does not promote diversity or help in adapting to a changing climate.
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| Hey, it's not polite to peek while they pollinate |
How could Los Angeles have any influence on the wine industry? Well, it turns out that the start of California's commercial wine business was in LA.
The California missions run from San Diego's Mission, founded in 1769, to Sonoma's Mission in 1823. BTW, there were also missions throughout Baja California. The missions were known for planting wine grapes and making mission wine for church services and to serve at their own dinners.
You might consider the San Diego Mission as the oldest winery in the country. However, they haven't made wine there in a very long time, it was never really a commercial winery, and California wasn't part of the US at the time.
As temperatures warm, vineyards will have to move. Premium grapes are very susceptible to temperature changes, as each variety operates in a small window of temperatures.
For the statistics nerd in all (most?) of us. A perspective on Napa, and Sonoma, in comparison to the wine industry in the rest of the state. This is good info for the people that see California wine only as Napa Valley.
Consumers who buy a lot of premium wine may have favorite vineyards. Example, "I just love any Pinot Noir from the Van der Kamp Vineyard."
This post was inspired by Sonoma Magazine's a list of "The Most Iconic Vineyards in Sonoma County." It's a nice try, but my list is better. :) We agree on some, not on others. People will still disagree with mine, but it is based on living in Sonoma County and drinking local for a lot of decades. If you can't trust experience, what can you trust?
This is about consistently producing above normal quality wines over many years, sometimes with a little uniqueness or fame thrown in.
Looking not too far into the future, what do we see for changes in the way grapes are grown and wine is made? Like other predictions, this is making assumption on current trends. There is always the unforeseen.
What does the Napa and Sonoma real estate market for wineries and vineyards look like now, in mid-2024? Here's a little info from Vintroux, real estate agents for wineries and vineyards.
Climate whiplash, it's enough to drive a farmer crazy. Growing premium wine grapes is especially hard hit because a slight variation in the elements of climate (temperatures, wind, sunshine, precipitation, humidity) can have a noticeable impact on the final product.
Climate whiplash is a term used to define the crazy, variable weather we're seeing in California and other places. It means extreme drought, extreme precipitation, extreme temperatures. That is, extreme variability in the weather.
Everybody loves a good comparison; Honda vs Toyota, California wine vs French, dogs vs cats. So let's take a look at Napa vs Sonoma. This isn't an opinion on which is best. It's statistical, so away we go number nerds!
The graph below, from the American Association of Wine Economists, has been making the rounds recently. It shows in "graphic" detail the biggest change in wine over that past few decades. That is, the amount of sugar in the harvested grapes, which translates into alcohol in the wine.
When a wine drinker thinks of Sonoma County, they likely focus on Pinot Noir. The top grapes by acreage are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Sauvignon, making up two-thirds of all the grapes grown in the county. There are smaller amounts of Zinfandel, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, and Syrah. The last ten percent is made up by over 50 other grape varieties. There's a move to diversify for several reasons.
We've been through the history of Cab, Pinot, and Zinfandel in Sonoma County over the last few posts. Now we are onto a rare one, an oddball, an out-of-favor grape, or what ever you might want to call it. Just don't call it Syrah because they are not the same, though they are related.
Petite Sirah is a fun one, mostly because it's not trendy. You won't find people getting all snooty about PS like they do with Cabernet or the very trendy Pinot Noir. It's a grape used for blending until fairly recent times.
Let's dive into the history of the very purple Petite Sirah in Sonoma County, in California, and in other parts of the world.
Zinfandel has a unique history in America. People have written books about the grape so this is strictly a few of the highlights of Zinfandel's history worldwide and in Sonoma County.
You'll hear Zinfandel called America's grape, America's heritage grape, America's own grape, or California's grape. These are all partially correct, as the history of Zin was a mystery before DNA testing a few years ago.
Pinot Noir has a short history in Sonoma County, and the rest of the country for that matter, as it was only a minor player in American wine for a long time. Even in its native France, Burgundy was overshadowed by Bordeaux until into the last half of the 20th century.
Cabernet Sauvignon is important to California, and certainly to Sonoma's next door neighbor, Napa Valley. Napa is home to some of the most famous and most sought-after Cabernets in the world. There are 95,000 acres of Cab Sauv planted in the state. By county, the largest amounts are in Napa, San Luis Obispo (home to the Paso Robles appellation), then Sonoma County.
