A few months ago, I made a difficult decision – to leave The Donum Estate and work as vineyard manager for Larkmead Vineyards in the upper Napa Valley. Anne has invited me to discuss my reasons for this decision and report on my new job.

I did not make my decision to get a better job, but to make a change. After farming for over a quarter of a century in Carneros, I have accomplished my mission here. I always had a dream to farm in Napa Valley as well. Now preparation and opportunity have come together, and I can learn the differences between Carneros and Napa.

The vineyards are located a few miles south of Calistoga in a narrow portion of the valley between Highway 29 and the … More…

We have been asked more “green” questions in recent months – do you grow your grapes sustainably, organically or biodynamically? And the follow-up question may well be, “What does sustainable mean, anyway?”

My simplest answers are “we farm our land as stewards so that one day our children may farm it” and “we put back more than we take.”

We view our vineyard as part of a whole bio-system that needs to sustain a balance or equilibrium. From Rudolph Steiner’s (father of biodynamics) day in the 1920s all the way back to the Farmer’s Almanac in the late 18th century, farmers operated within their own holistic unit, or self-contained system, and they carefully observed what seemed to affect them positively.

As a culture, we tend to denigrate the planting charts and … More…