Rancho Azul y Oro ~ Surviving the Dream

Everything is in full bloom at the ranch and the year is filled with promise. The vines are bursting forth with growth and getting ready to flower. The olive trees are nearly groaning with the weight of the flowers. For now, the lavender is quiet, but that can only last so long. While all that is planted is doing its part for this year's harvest, the ranchers are already looking toward harvest and attempting to devise some better grinding appartus to eliminate the nights in blinding rainstorms kicking the olive crushing equipment across the driveway; shoring up winemaking equations that vexed us in the prior year; researching better yeasts; tasting and racking last year's wine and standing watch over it, vowing that it will continue forward on a successfu path. Along with springtime comes a crush of work -- excuse the pun -- in the vineyard. The Zinyard was rototilled and weeding was done between all vines and all lower shoots were removed. Some clusters were also remo...

Bud break on the table grapes When last the ranchers drove off into the sunset, the native grasses were still gray in color and dormancy still dominated the landscape. A mere two weeks later and the temperatures have soared into the 80s, and upon arising yesterday, the occupants were greeted with bud break on the table grapes and on the olive trees. While it gladdens one's heart to see such demonstrations of the resiliency of Springtime, it also recalls to mind last year, when bud break occurred on the table grapes and olives at the end of March, and on April 8th and 9th, snow and hail decimated the newly budded plants and the crop for the year. The joyous weather and hopeful optimism of Spring could cause one to skip happily down the sidewalk, but history reminds one that happily skipping must be tempered with caution, since Mother Nature appears to be the world's great mischief maker. Be that as it may, after all the skipping down the sidewalk was completed, thes...

The rancho is going solar and will be home of 39 solar panels.   This author has wondered aloud how all those panels will mesh with the quiet majesty of nature at the rancho, but will apparently find out soon, because the engineers will be out to stake out the site over President's Weekend and then the engineering and permitting will begin, with some estimates placing installation as early as March 23rd.  Some coordination and inspection with PG & E will be necessary in order for their approval of said project, at which time, the rancho will be given the go ahead to flip said switch.  While the ultimate goal was clean energy independence and self-sufficiency, the basic hope is that when we flip a light switch, the lights go on and the well continues to pump water to the house.   Air conditioning in summer would be a close runner up.  It would be a happy day, indeed, to be able to report that this phase of planning and building at the ...

The adventures that continue to occur at the rancho boggle one's mind.  Keep in mind the romantic image that is continually in this hopeless romantic ranch manager's head of one day establishing a vineyard, strolling down the rows of the perfect, beautifully purple grapes, while holding a glass full of our favorite wine, all the while, incredible food from this very rancho is awaiting on the patio, perhaps a dish of home-grown, marinated olives, perhaps some grilled garlic bread drizzled with our own olive oil, perhaps some melted goat cheese drizzled with jams made from figs and peppers grown at this very farm.  We are inching ever closer, but there is always that frequent hair-raising incident that nearly causes one to get in the car, drive away, and never come back. Last week, in preparing for the 2011 harvest of the newbie Petite Sirah (which we should never do, yes, yes, it has been noted, but it was too tempting), we decided to take that stroll through the vineyard at s...

The constant question posed by one rancher to the other has recently been, "Why are we so tired?  Where has summer gone?  With harvest and the end of the year facing us, why have we taken no vacation?"  Finally, after a recent critical review of the schedule and how it could have been planned better, it was determined that the possibility exists that said ranchers have tried to fit too much living into the space of four months and that while it was planned in an exemplary fashion, down to the minute, the error is that no time was left to sleep (or even rest or sit down. In addition to a more-than full time profession held by one of the ranchers, some of the highlights of the weekends over the last few months include emergency driveway repair performed by the ranchers, a 40th birthday celebration being held at the ranch with 70 guests, and thankfully, time spent searching for and finding a new cleaning person for the ranch (unfortunately, after the pa...

   We began planning our vineyard in 2006, starting with layout, researching types of vine rootstock, clones, getting soils tests, ordering vines, ripping the soil, making hundreds of gopher cages, installing stakes and trellising, installing irrigation, making trips to Wasco to pick up vines, and planting them.  We have tied them more times than we can count.  We have nurtured them.  We have tested them.  We dropped the fruit for the first three years.  We have suffered numerous setbacks and challenges.  While we waited for the vines to mature the necessary five years (and while we weren't planting olive trees and lavender and harvesting said crops), we thought this might be the opportune time to work on a label that represents the ranch and the family.  I could see in my mind what the label would look like, and I spent hours on the computer attempting to achieve this, but couldn't seem to get there.  It was at this time,...

Being a cycling enthusiast and to celebrate his milestone birthday, Brian decided to ride from his home to the ranch, approximately 250 miles.  His four friends, Chris (x 2), Matt, and Josh accompanied him on this journey, which took from Tuesday until Friday afternoon last week.  Not only did Brian's ride require exacting detail, but the planning logistics for all the festivities required countless hours spent by Michelle, which was an amazing gift to Brian on its own merits.  After the rigors of the ride, a lively celebration in town ensued at Lombardi's on Friday night, followed by a BBQ of major proportions at the rancho for about 70 of Brian & Michelle's friends and family, then followed by a brunch at Calcareous the next morning.  Accomplishing a major feat for a birthday celebration appears to be a tradition in the family.  This ranch manager and her niece went to Italy for her 40th birthday and The Chief tried to best Pebble Beach recen...