The spring of 1998 was nothing but wet. This combined with the fact that the land had been totally excavated and loosened the prior year, meant that the soil soaked up water and stayed muddy. I had to do the final leveling because substantial settling had occurred during the winter and my four wheel drive tractor seemed to spend more time stuck than pulling equipment. I kept the excavator in the field and every time the tractor got stuck I would go jump in the excavator move in front of the tractor, and hook a chain to the bucket. That would allow me to pull out the tractor to more solid ground.

In 1998, I needed one full time helper. I ran an ad in the paper and a man from a couple miles down the road limped up to my door. He explained that he had not worked in three years, he had undergone double hip replacement surgery, and a horrible recovery. I was very fearful of causing him injury in the hard work we had but he nearly begged me. It wasn't about money for him, it was about having his life and worth restored. He had been a victim of a drug (pregnazone) used to fight allergies that destroyed his hips and many years of his life. After agonizing about the risks I felt any man that had that will to work deserved a chance. When Tom left one year later he was strong and had no limp, and said he felt better and stronger than he had in years. This is a man who will always have my respect.

With the leveling finally complete we moved on to placing a straw to mark the place for each plant to be planted in nice straight rows. Or as straight as we could lay out not being pros at this. I remember slogging thru mud that at times would entrap our rubber boots so tightly that pulling out your foot without the boot was common. The 25 acres of the vineyard we planted has over 18 miles of rows, with about 18,000 plants, the amount of work in the early years of a vineyard is staggering. Looking back I don't know how I did it. I refused to contract the work out to a large development contractor. I needed to save money and I needed to learn this business first hand even if later I would choose those easier routes. I am also very stubborn and the banks had demanded that I contract with an experienced contractor and farm manager or they would not loan us any money. They didn't loan us any money and we managed to complete the project without them.

This is one of the very first roots to push leaves. The amount of work to reach this point still seems astounding in retrospect.

The next big decision was choosing a root stock. Because of a small root pest called phyloxera, all modern vineyards are planted on roots that are resistant to the bug and the grape varietal is grafted to the resistant root. I was looking for rootstock that would be healthy in this tough soil environment that includes an ancient river bed and a large amount of rock. I could have purchased plants where the root stock is started in the nursery and grafted there also. Then the grafted plant is placed in the vineyard. This would have saved mountains of work, but I was convinced the old way of planting the root, letting the root grow in the vineyard for one year, and then field grafting, produced a more hardy plant.

I chose rootstock that had parentage in wild grapes from Texas . The grapes grew in river bottoms of creeks that dry out during the summer. These wild grapes have been known to totally overwhelm trees and pull them down with the weight of the wild vines. The roots were planted in the late spring of 1998.

The drip line was laid on the ground during that first year while the roots establish themselves.

This picture shows the vineyard at about June 1998 with the drip lines feeding the plants which have little or no foliage yet. The trees line the driveway to the house.

This picture shows the farm workers cutting the top of the rootstock and grafting on the Cabernet Sauvignon vine that we have been seeking. After grafting is complete the plants have a milk carton placed around them to protect them from rabbits.

By June 1999, the Cabernet are climbing the steel stakes of the trellis system. 90 miles of wire trellising will be installed to complete the trellis. Over 18,000 stakes were driven. A big set back hit us in the late spring of 1999. A late frost in early May froze the buds on about 4,000 plants. We had to re-graft all these plants. A few hundred of the roots died and we replanted those with nursery grafted stock in an attempt to keep the vineyard work at the same stage throughout the vineyard.

Hand labor during the trellising stage is absolutely staggering. When you drive along and see vines neatly trellised along wires and clean of suckers you are really looking at thousands of hours of painstaking hand labor. They do not naturally grow like this. Actually left to their own devices they go in all directions with no direction at all. The trellis is very important to farming grapes for quality wine. It is important that the grapes receive air around the bunches to reduce the risk of rot. I believe that machine harvesting for wine grapes is the only method to consider. The machine harvester shakes the trellis and the berries only fall off the vine. Also, machine harvesting is done at night when the fruit is cool and the truck arrives at the winery in the early morning. Hand harvesting involves cutting the rachis supporting the bunch and taking it to the winery for de-stemming. Some of the tannin (excessively sharp taste in the wine) comes from the grape drawing in tanning during the hours it remains on the rachis prior to de-stemming in the winery. The hand harvest begins at dawn and is completed at about noon with trucks arriving at the winery in late afternoon, the time of highest heat. By machine harvesting, the grapes are immediately removed from this source of tannin. Other sources of tannin include the oak barrels.

This young plant has grown up the stake, upon reaching the top it was cut off, causing branches to develop on lower nodes (wide spots along the cane about 4 inches apart, the only place the vine can sprout lateral growth, unlike trees). You can see the two shoots that are now bent and wrapped along the wire horizontally. These will be allowed to grow out 4 ft each way forming what is called the cordon. These cordons were handled often during this growth period while they are soft and pliable, in order to wrap them several times around the cordon wire and tied with tie tape in place. Additionally the plant is constantly pushing lateral shoots from every node that has to be constantly removed so that the plants resources are concentrated on the cordon shoots. Once cordon is complete it is cut ending its lateral growth.

During much of the spring and summer of 1999 and 2000 it took 4 men working full time to maintain and trellis the vines to the standards I wanted. I received much advice and knowledge from a 78-year-old Mexican farm worker named Antonio . To this day I am proud to say this wonderful man taught me more than anyone about proper trellising techniques in building a first class vineyard. It was so hard in those early days to walk out to the vineyard and see much of the lush new growth laying on the ground in Antonio 's wake. He said to much útrashî will hurt the strength of the plant. I was worried about his technique at first but I trusted his knowledge built on a lifetime in the vineyards. We developed a great mutual respect for one another. He tried to teach me Spanish but I am a total failure at language. Sometimes he would have to explain to fellow workers why the patrone (me), was out in the field getting dirty and sweaty everyday. They expected the úbossî to be in a pickup giving orders only, not my style. Everyone who eats needs to appreciate the incredible contribution made by farm workers to our food supply. It is sad that the market dictates of global food production do not allow enough profit in agriculture to pay these hard working people substantially more money than we do.

He was right about eliminating excess leaves and crop in 1999 (we removed all crop this year as it developed so no plant energy went to berry development) and the cordons developed such size and strength in those first two years that occasionally Antonio would tell me of large area growers coming to look at the fields progress while he was out tending the vines.