Rancho Azul y Oro ~ Surviving the Dream

In the old days (three or four years ago), there were down times at the ranch, such as summer and winter.  It could be said that it was because the plantings were not so mature and required far less work, which is, in part, true.  Experienced farmers, wine grape growers, and vintners probably know better.  Slowly, it is becoming evident that free time was abundant because we did not know we were supposed to be doing certain things on a regular schedule, such as spraying the vines, olives and lavender (yes, even the lavender) for disease and pests, thinning the shoots and fruit early in the season, regularly testing the grapes approaching harvest, performing regular chemical tests on our wine, adjusting the SO2 level, topping the barrels, then adding inert gas, all the while planning yeast choices for harvest, calculating harvest estimates and ordering barrels for the wine, bottles, labels, and corks for the oil and the wine. With all those lesso...

The end is in sight. The last olive has been picked. We remind ourselves, however, that it is now February of the next year. When one is hauling one's self in late at night after mat-layering or schlepping over to the barn in pajamas to crank the press down early in the wee hours of the morning, a negative attitude could creep in or thoughts along the lines that it seemed one was doing this months ago and is still engaging in the same task. It's been decided to opt for the positive spin, in order to retain sanity, the Italians don't pick their olives until January or February -- so we've got that going for us. The Arbequina paste and oil look distinctly different from the other three. The Mission and Frantoio paste were thicker to spread and the Mission oil is a gold, with hints of green; the Frantoio oil is an emerald green. We don't exactly know what to make of the Arbequina yet. The paste is extremely oily, so oily that the layers of mats were nearly slipping ...