Afghanistan

Okay, so what does Afghanistan have to do with Cerro Prieto Vineyard & Cellars? Well, to make a short story long, it has to do with a reminder for us all… and that is, what are you doing to help support the men and women of the armed services over in Afghanistan, who are doing their best to defeat the Taliban, and keep Islamic whackos from doing us more harm? Several years ago, I became pen pals with General David Petraeus, while he was commanding general of US forces in Iraq. It was sometime around the Fallujah surge, and was tense, hairy, and frankly a bit scarey…especially if things didn’t go well. On a lark, I sent General Petraeus two of my hunting and fishing books on Baja…both humorous in nature. I suggested a short story chapter per nite, just before turning off the light. Turned out he enjoyed both books, and when I asked if he would be interested in my sending a couple boxes of each book to the servicemen and women in Iraq, he said yes.

The big question was once there, how in the world did books get distributed? His answer was simple and once stated, obvious…chaplins. The chaplains also serve double duty as librarians, so in addition to bringing the good word, they also brought along books. I have been told my books were read all the way from Basra in the south to Kirkuk in the north. Some readers were kind enough to write email thank yous, and said how much they appreciated the gesture of sending some light and humorous reading material, especially for the times of monotony sandwiched between the times of chaos. The only glitch was the sending of 200 books, which came to over $400. That is where Cerro Prieto came in and picked up the shipping tab.

Now, several years later, we are starting the offensive in Afghanistan, this time in a faraway place, Marjah. As it turns out, a contingent of marines was sent to Afghanistan a while back, one the son of my best friend…marine Captain Mark Braithwaite. His dad had just forwarded me some pictures from Mark, and one is at the top of this blog. In a land of mud and dust, snow and ice, it seemed like a good idea to send the marines several boxes of Best Stories of Baja, and Arriba! Baja. I have hunted with Mark both in the Argentine, Zambia, and along the Rio Grande. As good a shot as his dad is, Mark is better…much better, and his dad is a crack shot with rifle or shotgun. I don’t know if the books will get distributed in Afghanistan as they did in Iraq, but I do know that some folks will read them and get some good belly laughs from short stories about the Baja outback. It is just a little thing, but is extremely welcomed by our troops over in the middle of nowhere, and was both simple and a pleasure to do. If you really want to do a good deed and bring some joy to some of our troops over there, contact the army and marines and see how you can get a package of joy to our men and women in Afghanistan. Oh, I didn’t mention it, but I have known Mark since he was 1 yr old, and he has become a very fine officer of men, plus he received the Bronze Star for heroism in the 2^nd Iraq war. If only a handful of folks who read this blog do a good deed for our servicemen and women far away from home, then the time spent writing this blog was well spent.

We don’t see the every day goings on in Afghanistan, and small little gifts are really appreciated by those receiving them. Regardless of your political inclination re: the war in Afghanistan, I hope you take the opportunity to make some marine or army soldier happy with a reminder of home. You will be surprised how good it makes you feel once you have taken the time, expense, and effort to do a good deed. As stark as the country is, it is amazing how beautiful the rugs they put down for shuras, or meetings, can be. The picture above is an example of how starkly contrasted the beautiful rug is to the barren landscape. A warm and hearty hello to our folks “over there”, stay safe, and thank you for your service. I would wish that when you all return home you will take the time to come visit us at our vineyard and share a glass of Paso Bordo with us. Best regards, Larry Stanton/ Cerro Prieto Vineyard & Cellars

Note: That's Captain Braithwaite at the far right end of photo...not near the "good" rug.

The Ecology of Cerro Prieto Vineyard Part 4

By 2007 we were committed to pruning to 2.5 Tons/acre, and usually had only 8 spurs/ 5 feet of vine. Additionally, we generally have only 1 cluster/ shoot, and the result is all clusters hanging independently, no one cluster touching another. Every cluster on every vine in the vineyard has air and light that reaches every part of each cluster, with more uniform ripening and equally important, virtually no mildew forms because of the generous amount of air and sunshine surrounding all clusters. This low yield pruning allowed us to cut back to a mere one or two mildew sprayings per season, because we prune to such low yields that we are eliminating most of the major reasons for mildew formation...to wit, grape clusters packed and jammed around one another, with clusters virtually intertwined resulting in cluster "clumps" the size of cantaloupes. All this resulted from merely drastically decreasing our crop load. To this day it literally breaks to drive by vineyards and see 10, maybe even 12 Tons/acre hanging on the vines. Actually, seeing even 6-8 Tons/acre is unsettling, because I know how inferior those grapes are to ones of substantially lower yields...such as Cerro Prieto's.

As for the huge pile of prunings in early spring, we no longer foul the air by burning them. Now we exclusively use the shredder pulled behind our tractor, thus eliminating thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide and smoke that would otherwise pollute the air. Furthermore, the shredded prunings decompose and result in returning more nitrogen to the soil. The use of Zon guns and cannons to scare away flocks of birds that descend on vines and literally clean the grapes off in minutes, has been replaced not only with bird netting, but also computer driven bird distress calls. Noisemakers are sound polluters, and with our current bird protection program, we have not only eliminated bird damage, we have environmentally friendly bird distress calls and netting...and nothing else. There is no noise pollution. Yes, these are small things, but overall, when added together, one can appreciate just how ecology influences and can be influenced by not only the beneficial animals and birds, but also by man inspired eco friendly actions.

The above vignettes have shown but a few of the multitude of ecological considerations at Cerro Prieto, and how easy it is to do things in an ecologically friendly manner. Best part is that we are keeping our environment cleaner, and at the same time making the ecologic considerations of the vineyard such that although we are not completely organic, we are doing everything and anything we can to see to it that our grapes grow in an atmosphere, water sphere, and soil sphere where they can be produced as organically as humanly possible. My favorite term for how we farm in an ecologically friendly manner, is "Going towards green". No, we are not there yet, but man have we made up some mileage as far as getting there. We bend over backwards and thoughtfully think our way through to see to it that grapes from Cerro Prieto(and therefore our wines) are produced in the most environmentally friendly manner possible. And it is all based on concerns about our vineyard ecology, keeping our vineyard as close to organic as possible, and never missing an opportunity to improve upon what we have already accomplished. From the perfect grape... comes the perfect wine. Our first bottling in 2009 of our 2006 vintage resulted in 2 International Gold Medals for Cerro Prieto Reserve Merlot, and national recognition for our

92 point Cerro Prieto Paso Bordo. That didn't happen by accident...following sound ecologic measures and "going towards green" have resulted in perfect wines being grown in the perfect place. That's not a bad model for making wine...great wine.

The Ecology of Cerro Prieto Vineyard, Part 3 of 4

Moving along in an ecologically friendly manner, we began 5 years ago to vastly decrease the amount of chemical herbicide we had been using. Pre-emergents were used which could keep an area of ground bare for up to 3-4 years. Without question, these chemicals are applied to and remain in the ground for years. We have now not used any of these pre-emergent herbicides for 4 years. Things don't look any different, but we do know we are not poisoning our water supply for years to come. Fact: one of the known causes of prostate cancer is...herbicide. That alone is enough reason to greatly reduce or completely get rid of pre-emergents. It does, however, allow more weeds to grow, but we hit these with the contactant, Round Up, which doesn't stay in the soil as pre-emergents do. Additionally, we have cut the # of spray nozzles per side of the spray rig to one each, thus cutting 50% more of our remaining herbicide use. Finally, we have cut our concentration of herbicide by half, again greatly decreasing the total amount of contact spray we use. Do the math and you will see we are now using 90-95% less of the herbicide than we formerly used. Yes, we do have a somewhat shaggier vineyard, and yes, more weeds do grow. But it is a small price to pay for being environmentally conscientious and ecologically sound.

There is another spray also used in vineyards, and that is pesticide spray. It is used for fungus, eg., mildew, with which we are all familiar. There can be other organisms that grow on grape leaves, not to mention grapes, but mildew is by far the most common offender. As recently as 5 years ago we were using 6-8 sprays/season, with a 10-20 day interval between sprayings. Fed up with that much spray use, we were looking for ways to either decrease pesticide sprays, or eliminate them entirely. As it turned out, that was the year, 2005, when we made the decision to drastically reduce our crop yields, and to go with 2.5-3.0 Tons/acre, rather than the 4-5 Tons/acre we had previously been pruned to. We had experimented with 5, 4.5, 3.5, 3.0, and 2.5 Tons/acre, and had found our

"sweet spot" to be somewhere in the 2.5-3.25 Tons/acre range. At the lower yields our flavors became markedly more aromatic, more vibrant, and the tastes more remarkable. The lower yields also yielded way less mildew, and pesticide spray was cut by 85-90% of what we had formerly used.

Lower yields don't just affect grapes, incidentally. Look at roses, for example. If you have a bush loaded with rosebuds and then pinch off every other bud, the resultant roses are more aromatic, more intense, richer in color, and larger flowers to boot. Same with a nectarine tree, or any other plant that produces either fruits or flowers. Additionally, we had been losing fruit from some ultra low yielding vines, which were located around the periphery of our Cab, Merlot, and Syrah blocs. This was because the wineries we had been selling to waited until the majority of the bloc was ripe, and then harvested. The fact that several hundred vines around the periphery of each of our 3 acre blocs were severely stressed due to competition with nearby oak trees for not only water, but also nutrients, resulted in those vines ripening 2-3 weeks before the majority of the vines contracted to other wineries were picked. Essentially, in 2006, we for the first time harvested those stressed vines for our own wines, instead of letting them just dry up and go to waste. The resultant wines from those vines yielded only 1 Ton/acre, but holy cow, were those grapes ever aromatic with flavors of blackberry, cherry, raspberry, cassis, occaisonal strawberry, some plum, and, of course, the minerality that our vineyard is known for, because of our chalk rock soil.

Recall that ecology is the branch of biology dealing with living organisms and their environment. Well, if you greatly improve the vine's environment, you likewise improve the vine...and its magnificent fruit. At Cerro Prieto that is our thrust...do everything we can to make the most favorable environment for our vines, and hence...our wines. Continued in Part 4.