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 Silverado Trail. I can see Mt. St. Helena and the white-washed walls of Sterling Winery on a hilltop as I work. The soil is drier than Carneros and there is less vegetation. I visited Donum last Saturday, and they haven’t disked yet. We are disking in Napa, and the soil is already dry.

Of course, the big difference is that I’m growing Cabernet Sauvignon instead of Pinot Noir. Someone remarked to me that now I’m growing the king of wine grapes. And I told him that I had already farmed the queen. When I started working with Pinot Noir, I thought that if I can do this, I can do everything else. Now I realize how valuable my experience is.

I now farm a bigger vineyard with more people and challenges, but I’m comfortable and I trust my experience. It’s a new and exciting venture, but I’m not nervous. I know what to do.  I spent 16 years farming for Larry Hyde and another decade with Anne Moller-Racke. What’s the main thing of value that I learned from them? Very simply, it’s to take care. Paying attention to detail is the best way to farm. It’s important to be self-critical and to do a good job from my own point of view.

I was talking to the owner of Larkmead about an agreement. I told him, “The vineyard is mine, but you can have the grapes.” We laughed about it, but this is my way. I want to farm like the vineyard is my own.

For me, working at Donum emphasized the importance of building a good team to accomplish what is needed in the vineyard. The team communicates knowledge and experience into action. The newest employee, the lowest guy on the organizational chart, is the most important because he is doing the work.

I’ve been listening to our new president. Obama says that we have to pursue excellence, that nothing is easy, but that yes, we can succeed. If one man can do it, we all can do it. It means I can do it well, too.

Donum will be part of my heart forever. I felt that it was my project, too. I was responsible for my area, and with Anne, Kenneth and the whole team, we created success. I feel I can put a big check mark by Donum and I am ready for the next challenge.

My new job is not better – it’s different. Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon, and its sister Bordeaux varieties, are totally different. I have been welcomed by my friends in Napa Valley, and I have a new team. I tell my people, “I will take care of your job, but you must take care of my job.”

Everyone has a task. The other day we were repairing a mower. A drive shaft runs from the power-take-off to a gearbox, and then another shaft comes out and operates the blades. I pointed out to them that if one part of this assembly doesn’t work, nothing else works. So that’s the exciting part of this new project for me – getting everyone to work well together.

This rain is warm. My sweatshirt got wet, but I didn’t even notice it because I felt no cold. Even in Mexico, around Guadalajara, over the holidays it was quite warm, in the 70’s during the day. We stay awake almost all night there, and although it was very cold from 3 until 6 am with frost on the grass, as soon as the sun rose, it began to warm up. Temperatures ranged from 30 to almost 80 degrees.

We didn’t have this kind of rain here last year. So far, 2008 reminds me of 2006. As Anne wrote in a previous post, most of us who work in the vineyards take two weeks vacation for the holidays. In 2006, we worked for a day or two after vacation, and then we had to sit for a week while it rained. I wonder if 2008 will be like 2006 in other ways.

We just started pruning last Wednesday, the second day of the new year. If it’s not raining, we go in. Mud is part of our lives.

We prepared well last fall. It was so dry through 2007 that we did do some post-harvest watering for the winter. I often compare vines to the human body. If they dehydrate, they are stressed, and the sap can plug up if it’s too dry.

Despite the dry weather, the mild summer did not stress the vines. It was a long season, but the crop was not heavy, so there was not so much demand on them.

A lot of growers started pruning in December. Pruning earlier will cause the vines to push out earlier, but do they want to push the season ahead? No. I think it’s logistics. They want to use their crews.

We prune later to delay bud break for frost protection. The later the vines push, the better. The time between bud break and flowering can vary widely, and that’s driven by weather. We want the most even conditions we can get. The plant doesn’t like a lack of continuity. Once it flowers, the timetable is more precise.

We marked our vines to indicate virus levels last year before they lost their leaves. Now we can monitor how they do. We will prune the same this year, but we’ll thin more crop to offset possible effects from virus.

We have both cordon-pruned and cane-pruned vines. Cane pruning offers more options and so requires more decision-making. Ironically, our prime block for Donum, 490, is on the cordon, and we don’t want to change anything because the wines are so good. We also have some cordon on 4A07 of the Ferguson Block, but the rest is all cane.

In Carneros, it’s often cold and windy or wet at bud break. On the cordon, you leave the first two buds, but sometimes in cold weather, those buds are not very vigorous. On canes, if the first two buds don’t push, all the rest will.

On the other hand, the cordon arms are like trunks, and they store a lot of nutrients for the beginning of the season so that you can get a nice even push. A cane has a much smaller diameter, so it’s like a little seedling, slower, more fragile and more uneven. We deal with that with techniques – making canes shorter, suckering earlier, forcing energy to buds in the positions we want. Our goal is to make the canes look as even as cordons.

Usually the cordon-pruned vines yield less than cane-pruned vines, but last year in a vintage of low yields (40% lower than 2006, 25% less than normal), the cordon vines in 490 produced a normal-sized crop.

Our clay soils retain water and stay cooler, so the vines are typically behind other areas. Also, because Pinot Noir pushes out later than Chardonnay, we can time the pruning by varietal. One advantage to other growers pruning early is that if we get way behind, there are guys available to help us. For right now, we have no choice but to watch it rain.

As I mentioned in a previous posting, our core vineyard people are not seasonal workers. They are full-time, benefited employees. This is the time of year when they use vacation time to take their families back home for the holidays.

These employees are professionals, and the quality of their work depends on proper execution, as with any craft. Most members of our crew are somewhere in their thirties, have been with us since the start of this project, and were experienced when they joined us.

Our crew is well-trained, and they understand the nuances of what we want to accomplish. That’s important, because sometimes as we learn and evolve, those nuances change. Collectively, we touch every one of our 120,000 vines eight times each year. That’s not me out there touching all our vines, so it’s important that every one of our people understands not only the unique characteristics of each site on our property, but also exactly what needs to be done. They are my only connection to the vines.

Our approach to farming is very labor-intensive. In the winery, Kenneth and one or two assistants can do all the work. In the vineyard, many more people are required to deal with the same amount of fruit. From time to time, we expand our base crew by working with a labor contractor who knows our operation. Again, the quality of communication between our crew and those who help us is paramount to proper execution and it’s based on good relationships.

Kenneth, Nabor and I are also getting better, developing a common language of communication. We try to utilize everyone’s expertise, and we have progressed through trial and error. For example, what does it really mean if I say we need a “lightly opened canopy?” Nabor has taken it upon himself to carefully define such concepts all the way down the line. We all want to create the best, but the mission can be somewhat subjective and change subtly.

We have an on-going power-versus-elegance discussion. We want wines that are complex and concentrated, but balanced and not over the top. It’s fun, because we’re small and all connected to the whole project, from vine to marketplace.

Our next major challenge is re-planting some blocks and applying what we have learned in the last seven years. I’m focused on selecting the right clones. We can grow almost anything in California’s climate, so we must use years of experience about how each clone performs on a site, factoring in the variations of vintage.

Fortunately, we don’t have to factor in variations in people. The same people execute and learn together year after year. We also bring in consultants like Dr. Phil Freese and Zelma Long to stimulate us and give us fresh ideas so that we don’t become complacent.