2008 Blog Archive                            

2007 Blog Archive                            

2006 Blog Archive                           

In the Vineyard:

           At Iron Horse "Estate Bottled" means that the winemaking begins in the vineyard. Our location in Green Valley represents the very best soil, climate and aspects for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (for both sparkling and still). Our goal is to grow the best winegrapes we should be growing and we do that through what we call "precision winegrowing." All pruning, canopy management, irrigation, cover crop and even harvesting decisions are determined on a block-by-block (and sometimes even vine-by-vine) basis, considering both the vintage at hand and the long term needs of the land. In both our older vineyards and new plantings we use the best tools technology can give us and up to date viticulture - balanced by our 30 years of experience and passion. 

Here are links to Justine Sterling’s blogs because she put a link in her blog to this, so I need to reciprocate, it’s an unwritten law: http://theunderbelly.wordpress.com/

http://barrelsandfields.blogspot.com/

       Also links to the new improved and corrected vineyard map and description, all the kind of details you never knew you wanted to know until you could know them.

http://www.ironhorsevineyards.com/winemaking-vineyards/documents/IronHorse_BlockMap_2008-02-13_000.pdf

http://www.ironhorsevineyards.com/winemaking-vineyards/documents/2008VineyardDescription.pdf

       Once again it seems I am using up too much bandwidth.  So everything from November 8 to March 5 is being archived.  That seems to happen on the left.

May 5, 2008

Finally, it’s May, and I’m hoping “frost season” is over (either cross your fingers, touch wood or do something superstitious, now). We had some losses, but nothing significant.  An interesting problem is that although last April was one of the driest since they’ve been keeping records, where we have been frost protecting it is pretty darn wet and while it looks pretty, it’s been tough for those who have allergies. 

We’re still busy shoot thinning, right now the guys are working on the babies in C.

While it may not look like there’s much to do, shoot thinning young vines, in particular cane pruned vines is very demanding because there is almost no room for errors and one has to be focused not just on this year’s canes but also next year’s (and maybe in the following year’s too).

Below are my notes from our session with Daniel Roberts.

If still in the carton: Select strongest and straightest shoot, tie Remove the other shoots and replace carton.  Do not cut tape.

If Head Trained:  Select 3 to 4 shoots based on height (3” to 4” below fruit wire) and strength, leave only 2 shoots if the trunk is weak. Pick those shoots that will make the best canes and/or spurs next year. Thin remaining shoots and buds.  If a field graft, cut the tape.

If Cane Trained:  Check first and make sure there are buds or shoots suitable to be next year’s replacement canes and/or spurs (note, spurs needed if the cane is too high), then, thin to 3 to 4 buds per cane. If a field graft, cut the tape.

Sometimes the results aren’t pretty, but as long as we can get some fruit this year and have canes and/or spurs for next year I’ll survive.

We are also at work putting in the frost protection lines and irrigation in Upper A, Lower A and Train House B.

Here are plans for the overhead sprinklers.

I am very pleased with the simplicity of the design (thank you Angie).  Mainly I’m pleased with our decision to use overhead sprinklers and not micro-emitters.  With overheads we really aren’t using that much more water because of the narrower row spacing.  More important, the pipes are underground, hence insulated, so while freeze back is possible it’s a lot less likely.  The whole point of a frost protection system is that it has to work every night, without fail, miss just one and you lose the crop.

Of course with the arrival of May, no more “Offal Monday.”  So below is my homage to some great lunches.

The Offal Truth: Random Ramblings About Making the Best of Mondays

The offal-ness started with a request by viticulture consultant Daniel Roberts, PhD, he wanted sweetbreads, and Lucas Martin, co-chef and co-owner of K&L Bistro in Sebastopol, CA (for two years a Michelin one star restaurant), was happy to oblige, meanwhile I was looking for both sweetbreads and other innards, and a way to have more than just a sandwich on Mondays, because if I didn’t it would mean three sandwiches a week, if I kept up with my save the Earth and a buck too austerity campaign (it seems I may have started a recession, sorry).  The result; starting, on January 14, 2008, were the best sweetbreads (based on the size I’d say pancreas, I’ve learned so much) I’ve ever had in my life, and the first ‘Offal Monday’. 

No matter what else happens – provided Barack Obama is elected president (and if he isn’t I shall weep for this nation) 2008 will always be a great year (at this point my wife and children will point out that it can only be a great year if the Yankees win the championship, as if that really matters).  Since that wonderful day we’ve had sweetbreads again (based on size this time I’d guess thymus, I’ve learned so much), pan seared calf’s liver, beef tongue pot-au-feu, lamb kidneys, pig’s feet ragout with pork belly a la orange.   Also trippa alla romana (yep, tripe, and while I missed President’s Day but that night I had Ox Tail Consommé, with marrow, at Cyrus in Healdsburg and if ox tail isn’t offal than there’s no offal), calf’s liver in a red wine reduction sauce, sweetbreads provençal, lambs kidneys and lambs hearts and I’ve combed my library for everything I’ve got on offal, which, it appears, is a lot, and don’t forget the Internet.

I always like to start my research with my dictionaries, starting with the Thin Paper Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Fifth Edition, Springfield Mass., 1946 (a gift to my Father for his 16th birthday, in 1945, just two months after the end of WWII, which explains thin paper, but not a 1946 date):  “Of’fal (õf’ãl), n.  [off+fall.]  1.  Waste parts, ends, bits, etc.; esp., sing. & pl., the inedible parts of a butchered animal.  2.  Worthless refuse; rubbish.”  Okay not very appetizing, so I turn to Larousse Gastronomique, the revised 2001 English language edition (I know, it would be better in French, but then no definition of ‘offal,’ which in French is ‘abats’):  “The edible internal parts and some extremities of an animal, which are removed before the carcass is cut up.  It therefore includes the head, feet and tail, and all the main internal organs.”   Good.  Then on to The Oxford Companion to Food, by Alan Davidson, Oxford University Press, 1999: “Those parts of a meat animal which are used as food but which are not skeletal muscle.  The term literally means ‘off fall’, or pieces which fall from a carcass when it is butchered.”  Leave it to the English to find the middle ground (much like the Anglican Church), although I noticed the definition in my 1993 edition of the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary includes  “the parts of a slaughtered or dead animal unfit for human consumption; decomposing flesh; carrion… refuse in general; rubbish, garbage, dregs, scum.”  That appealing definition sent me to my trusty 1967 petit Robert, a French dictionary, to look up ‘abat’: “Parties accessories d’animaux tués pour la consomation.”  Additional parts of animals butchered for consumption.  Clear, to the point and definitely non-judgmental.  Curiously, or maybe not, “offal” is absent from my Grandfather’s Funk and Wagnalls New Standard Encyclopedia, Vol. XIX, 1948, although there is an entry for Neat’s –Foot Oil which comes from boiling ox-feet, which seems to me to be to be offal, but it’s used to dress leather so not eaten.

Of course the fact is that offal is everywhere in our diet.   Americans are regular consumers of offal.  Anyone who’s had a Dodger Dog has probably had offal and just didn’t know it - okay I don’t really know what goes into Dodger Dogs, or Ball Park Franks or anything served from the Oscar Meyer wiener-mobile because they don’t seem to want us to know, but if they used a natural casing (somebody’s small intestine), then offal is involved (the alternative is plastic or artificial collagen, yuck).  My point being is that I doubt an all beef hot dog is made with sirloin steak, and if not then with what?

What we don’t have is a complete acceptance, like the French, that great eating often involves some of the baser parts of an animal.  A favorite example comes from Les Recettes Originales de Jaques Maximin, Couleurs, Parfums et Saveurs de ma Cuisine, Editions Robert Laffont, Paris 1984;  “Cous de vollaille farcis au pieds d’agneau,” or fowl necks stuffed with lamb’s hooves – sheep are ungulates, hence have hooves, which isn’t as off the wall as it seems.  According to Larousse Gastronomique: “Stuffed neck of duck or goose is a speciality of south-west France.  The bones are carefully removed from the neck, then the skin is sewn up at one end and stuffed with a mixture of chicken, and pork meat, a little foie gras, Armagnac and truffle juice.  It is cooked in duck or goose fat.”  Maximin’s version is a lot healthier, but I really want to try both of them.  As a quick aside, my favorite Maximin recipe is for Courgettes å la Fleur at aux Truffes.  Basically, stuffed zucchini flowers.  You need two people, one to hold the flower and another to blow it open before stuffing.

What we do know is that offal tends to spoil, hence why it is normally made into sausages, terrines and pâtés (and spreads), and why this was normally done in winter.  The main theme of Stéphane Reynaud’s (soon to be a culinary classic) Cochon & Fils (also available in English as, go figure, Pig & Sons), 2005, is the annual February pig slaughter at his hometown of Saint-Agréve in the Ardeche, when it’s pretty cold.  So I understand why people may have their reservations.

But what makes offal taste so good (yes it does naysayer)? For an important question like that there’s only one savant with all the answers, Harold McGee, (he is never wrong).  So I open my first Scribner revised edition, 2004, of his On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, Completely Revised and Updated (which unlike my older dog-eared paperback is not signed by the ‘Master’) and I learn, some offal, like tongue have more connective tissue, which means more collagen, which means great stocks or stews - which explains why  beef tongue was the perfect base for a pot-au-feu and ox tail screams out, “use me for consommé,”  or other parts make for delicious crispy snacks like pork rinds and the pig’s ears my wife’s dog loves.   Then there are organs like kidneys and liver, which have very little collagen but much more flavor, because, according to Harold McGee:  “The characteristic flavor of liver has been little investigated, but seems to depend importantly on sulfur compounds (thiazoles and thiazolines), and generally gets stronger with prolonged cooking.”

Still we know the important part is that while there may be a class of ‘offal’ meats, each one needs to be prepared in a manner appropriate to its qualities.  Many, many years ago, my wife and I thought we’d make kidneys.  We did not own a knife sharp enough to remove the outer-membrane (a must according to Hugh Fearley-Whittingstall, The River Cottage, Meat Book, 2004, or use scissors) and clearly lacked the time and skill needed for a successful dinner.  Imagine starting with this:

Then ending up with this:

Lucas Martin’s Trippa all Romana had to be cooked for eight hours.  For some, sweetbreads need 48 hours to get right, first soak in milk or water then press and dry (Thomas Keller suggests one may need three days - is it me or do I have too many cook books?).

So what’s my point? Well, offal food is great food, when fresh and prepared by a professional, and it’s the green thing to do, as Hugh Fearley-Whittingstall states:

Offal offers us a chance to pay our respects, in a full and holistic manner, to the animals we’ve raised for meat.  The nose to tail approach to using the animals we kill for food must…be a central tenet of the contract of the domestication and good husbandry.

April 22, 2008

 “April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.”

T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland.

April 2008 sure has been cruel, especially when it comes to frost nights, about 27 in 32 days, a new seasonal record (add April 15 to the mix and you can understand why I always look forward to May), and while we are getting lilacs, still not a drop of rain, which explains why we’ve had to frost protect so much - clear and windless nights are much colder than foggy, cloudy or rainy nights.

Manuel Briano (right) and José Puga have a lot of time to bond.

They’re doing great work.  I go down some nights just to see what it’s like…it’s dark and cold and noisy, and yet when the full moon is out and the frogs are sounding off it can be very pretty.

It’d be nice to be done with frost season (especially given the cost of diesel) but I’d prefer it didn’t rain now or in May until we have full set.  But, the swallows are back (probably the only new residential development in Sonoma County this year, which could be seen by some as progress).     

Notwithstanding cold nights, the days can be pretty warm, so we had good shoot growth - note below three inflorescences or clusters on a single Chardonnay shoot, good news given the small size of last year’s crop (everyone must now touch wood), but understandable as this year’s grapes started to form last June and July, and because of the smaller crop the vines were able store additional carbohydrates.

This much growth means it’s time to shoot thin and sucker the vines.  It’s the second and a half individual visit to each and every vine (cane pruned and cordon vines still being trained, need to be tied after pruning).  Basically we’re eliminating all the shoots we don’t want, such as suckers (from below ground), water sprouts (on the trunk), shoots or buds in the wrong place, i.e. not on the spur or growing on the bottom of the cordon, and making sure there are no more than two shoots per spur (some times the secondary bud also starts to push, and we don’t want two shoots right next to each other in the same place).  Below on the left is ‘before,’ which means ‘after’ is on the right – make it game, find which shoots were thinned.

For me thinning isn’t as mind engaging as pruning, still it’s quite satisfying, and after hours in the sun I’ve been told I’ve taken on a ‘weathered look,’ but in a good way.  Mainly we use our hands.  Shovels for suckers and occasionally pruning shears

Why do all this work?  Short answer:  To get grapes that taste better when made into wine.  Scientific answer:  from Ron S. Jackson’s Wine Science, Principles, Practice, Perception. Second Edition; ‘thinning’ or early spring ‘disbudding’ have two benefits, first, “early removal economizes nutrient reserves and favors the strong growth of the remaining shoots,” and second, “improve vine microclimate.”  (Dr. Jackson is a Canadian who taught mainly at Brandon University in Manitoba, was a technical advisor to the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission and is now “allied with the Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute, Brock University in Ontario.”)  Long answer:  At this early stage of growth the ‘food’ for the vine is sugar stored in the trunk and cordon from last year.  Not long after thinning the growth in the remaining shoots is quite dramatic.  More important by limiting shoots to two per spur, or one, depending on the vine and the spur, which is how we pruned the vines not so long ago, we’ll get better canes, which encourages reproductive growth (a/k/a/ grapes), no crowding (helps to reduce botrytis issues), and better light (more on that in future entries) which affects maturity and flavors.  As I’ve said before, and will say again, what we’re doing is neither native nor natural.  Vines prefer vegetative growth; shoots and leaves, but we can’t sell shoots and we can’t bottle shade, so we ‘persuade’ then to grow grapes, but, and here’s the paradox, more shoots, more leaves, etc. does not mean more grapes or, and here’s the important part, the quality of those grapes you would get if we didn’t thin isn’t what we need.

Meanwhile, another shot of the person who really should be the next President of these United States of America, taken just before he explained to a bunch of us well to do types (I take pride that we were the only one’s to show up in a pick-up truck), why small town people in Pennsylvania are bitter, and it made a lot of sense at the time and was definitely not elitist - after all I’m now from a small town, and my wife was born in a small town in Pennsylvania, and we weren’t offended, we didn’t feel the need to run to a church and cling to our guns.

To finish, Lamb Chop (the best I’ve ever had) and Lamb Hearts from the ‘offal’ genius; Chef Lucas Martin at K&L Bistro:

April 4, 2008

We’re getting some bud break, like in P2, note the inflorescences…

Elsewhere, we’re just waiting.

Mainly it’s been clear and dry with very little wind.  That means it is cold, at least for Californians, and cold means we need to frost protect, so far about 13 nights out of the last 15.  If the low temperatures charted below are above 32 degrees, it’s because the frost protection system is working.

The main reason why it’s working is because of the efforts of Manuel Briano and Jose Puga (shown below).  As soon as the temperature drops below 38F they’re down at the reservoir warming up the engines.  It’s not just cold and dark, it’s also noisy the frogs are really loud.  Below 36F they turn the engines on, and then go out into the cold, and now wet vineyard to check various filters, water pressure, etc.  If the system fails a huge chunk of the crop will be lost, which I am sad to say has happened to some of our neighbors.

Buzz Word Winemaking

Last year I learned to taste better, this year I learned to smell bad.  Actually, winemaker David Munksgard and I, learned about Wine Sensory Defects, which meant smelling defective wines and learning what defects are associated with which smells.  For example, if one smells vinegar or fingernail-polish, chances are the wine has VA, volatile acidity, i.e. something went wrong during fermentation or the barrels weren’t properly topped.

The class got me thinking about what it is we’re doing at Iron Horse, both in the vineyard and in the winery, and how it all seems so ‘conventional.’  We’re not organic or biodynamic, we filter, use commercial yeast, etc., simply un-cool.  I wondered what it would be if we were ‘with it’ and then set about creating a hypothetical, back label, as follows:

Buzz Word Cellars

Green Valley of Russian River Valley

2006 Pinot Noir

This dangerous Pinot Noir was grown exclusively in certified ‘biodynamique’ or organic vineyards, by growers who use deficit irrigation and can partition carbohydrates.  The grapes are picked only after extended hang time (preferably later than anyone else), and made at our gravity fed winery (after hand sorting and table sorting), by the seat of our hemp fiber pants.   100% hot, native fermentation, unfiltered and un-fined - Our cutting edge winemaker is not afraid to get intimate with the fruit (but only during a full moon).

Contains Sulfites Produced & Bottled by Buzz Wine Co., Sebastopol, CA

Government Warning:  (1) According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects. (2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems

Allow me to parse the above.  I won’t dwell on biodynamic, other than the only way to be certain to have a defect free wine is to have no crop at all, which is an option if biodynamic.  As for organic, the problem is sulfur.  Be it a sulfate, sulfite or sulfur dioxide we’re talking intense and disagreeable odors.  Yes we use SO2 as a preservative, and sulfur as a fungicide in the vineyard (only one application).  But organic growers use it much more frequently, risking sulfur residue at harvest and during fermentation excess sulfur can become sulfur dioxide, which will give a wine a burnt-match smell and seriously irritate the nose, while hydrogen sulfide will result in a rotten egg smell.  Jump forward to ‘native fermentation’, and we do some, there’s a risk of VA, and hydrogen sulfide and (cue the scream) mercaptans, which range from smelling like cooked cabbage or canned corn to rubber, natural gas and putrefaction, because when doing a native fermentation one is taking some serious risks, which is not the case with commercial yeasts.

What’s wrong with deficit irrigation?  Nothing if done right, but water-stress vines too much and they won’t take up enough potassium which could lead to too much malic acid and if really stressed will smell like nail-polish remover.  Partitioning carbohydrates is something we actually do, basically at a certain point we want photsynthates (water, sugar, etc.) to translocate to the grapes and not to the leaves and shoots, more on this in a later entry.  Hang time is the big issue.  Long hang time (ultra high brix levels in the grapes) means wines with higher pH, they may have a great mouth feel, are ready to drink real soon and are beloved by certain wine critics, however, the downside is a wine that is inherently unstable.  The range of bad bacteria, and yeast that can survive in the bottle is scary, hence a risk of a wine that smells like it has been baked, i.e. oxidized (fine in sherry, not so in a Pinot) because of acetaldehyde, not to mention (cue the scream) mercaptans.

What do I have against hand sorting and sorting tables?  Well, they aren’t cheap, and field sorting (which is what we do) is pretty effective, with proper supervision.  Hand sorting and sorting tables require the grapes to be de-stemmed, so reds only, and they slow down the ‘put through’ rate of a winery.  Take the following scenario, Owner goes to Winemaker, demands a wine that will garner a 97, so Winemaker says we need more hang time, the grapes arrive but some of them are raisins, which winemakers don’t like, so Winemaker goes to Owner, requests a sorting table, which Owner buys, and now that the winery has one insists it be used, except now the winery crushes at a much slower pace, and Winemaker still wants cool grapes and insists on night picking (real bad for one’s carbon foot print), and at night there’s no way to effectively field sort…and so on.  I like what we are doing, pick when David says pick and start at first light without leaving bins of grapes sitting around, and raising the cost of making a bottle of wine without necessarily improving quality.

What about the rest?  Real quick with rest: gravity fed? hey before the power grid a necessity, but what goes down still has to go up, eventually, so why not just learn how to use a pump; hot fermentation? for Chardonnay at least a cool fermentation means esters, i.e. exotic fruit and minerality (which I like, check out the UnOaked Chardonnay);  un-fined, fine, but unfiltered? I’m not saying all wines need to be sterile filtered, but at least analyze the wine first, and filtering, in of itself isn’t wrong so long is it is done properly; getting intimate with the fruit? well that’s just nasty.

What is it that’s making me start each paragraph with “what?”  I’m trying to make a point.  Which is that we are on the right track.  I always wonder is the test of buzz word wines and dangerous wine making are not the wines that are released but are the ones that never see the light of day?

To finish on a positive note, calf’s kidneys at K & L ‘Offal Monday’, starting with after…

Then before.

March 24, 2007

       Spring is.  The buds are starting to break.

(By the way, I really love the shot above, it had just stopped raining, note the bead on the left and how I captured the sunlight, I used a special conversion lens on the Leica V-Lux1 – still, I want a Leica M8.)

       Red Winged blackbirds are back at the reservoir (they have a great song but I can’t figure a way to record and post it directly online, so to get an idea try http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/htmwav/h4980so.mp3, our government at work).

Spring in California means it can be 79° one moment, and hailing the next, and we have to worry about frost.   Every day Meteorologist Erik Moldstad sends out a “Frost Watch,” like the one below:

FROST FORECAST BY MICRO-CLIMATES

We have frost pockets.  Frost protecting is hard work.  The temperature alarm goes off at midnight or 1:00 am, the pumps have to warm up and it’s cold and dark.  I don’t know this first hand, but I’ve been told.  We’re even getting asparagus, leeks and spring onions from the garden.

       The real proof it’s spring, Sweet Breads (calf’s pancreas actually, thymus are smaller, I’ve learnt so much at Offal Monday’s at K&L) Provençal with asparagus, baby artichoke and fennel.

Cover Crops at Iron Horse Vineyards

        Many years ago, we didn’t know about cover crops, of course we didn’t know much of anything.  So any plant material other than a grapevine was a weed competing for water, etc. and needed to be eliminated.  Now, particularly here at Iron Horse, cover crops are a serious part of ‘Precision Viticulture’, a key tool to manage variability, which explains why there is no intentional use of mustard.  We have some, but as soon as we can it is mowed.  At best mustard is a weed.  It can be pretty in February and March, and clearly it is beloved by newspaper and magazine editors, such that I don’t doubt winery marketing types order their vineyard managers to put it in the vineyards, but that’s just bad farming.

       The primary purpose of a cover crop is erosion control, particularly in newly planted vineyards with significant slopes, like C and H.  

       What we want is a quick growing, deep rooted ‘grass’ such as dwarf barley.  What you see above in H are oats, because of the Republican’s lame excuse for an energy program, which got a lot of farmers growing corn for mandated ethanol, because it seems we only know how to make ethanol out of corn, even though the Brazilians use sugar, which meant less barley and other crops were planted, but brewers need barley for beer, which meant oats for us.   In steeper areas we’ll add various other grasses such as fescues and ryes, to provide even more holding power.  The problem with oats and barley is that over time they grow too fast, so we have to mow, and they provide too much competition with the grapes for water and nutrients, so we’ll disc all the rows as soon as it is dry enough, stop the competition and increase the organic matter in the soil and then will reseed next fall.

       We then have vines that need help, like vines planted on AXR rootstock that are being attacked by phylloxera, which leave wounds in the feeder roots and allows bad fungi to get in, and eventually the poor plant dies.  We may have vines that are in thin soils and lack enough vigor (remember we need shoots and leaves to get grapes).  In those blocks we plant a special “green manure” mix developed by Dr. Daniel Roberts: bell beans (20%), magnus peas (30%), common vetch (25%), white oats (10%), dwarf barley (10%) at a rate of 50 lbs per acre.  Bell beans are the same as fava beans – so, when buying seed, buy bell beans when selling or serving, serve ‘favas’  (in one catalog, bell beans, vicia faba, start at $.64/lbs while fava beans vicia faba, are $2.09/lbs, apparently bell beans are smaller).  Beans are legumes and legumes actually fix nitrogen, something like 70 to 150 lbs per acre, hence a natural fertilizer.  As you can see below we don’t mow until its time to disc the cover crop into the ground.

       At this point, if you’re keeping count we’ve already encountered three different approaches, and now we are ready for two more, permanent cover crops, i.e. we just mow and let them reseed themselves (which will happen for about six years or so).   Another Daniel Roberts’ recipe: zorro fescue (50%), delaware white rye (20%), chewing red fescue (30%).  The goal here is not provide bad competition with the vines, but to provide erosion control, some organic matter in the soil, and most important create a ‘zone’ for good fungi, like mycorrhizal fungi, which help vine roots take up water and nutrients, and are pretty cute, for fungi (not my photo).

              Biology is complex, but I’m getting used to it.  So if there is too much vigor in a block (remember, we need the right amount of shoots and leaves) then we’ll add more seed.  So in P7, directly below, we seeded at 25 lbs per acre, while in P6 (next shot), 50 lbs.

I know, hard to see the difference.  Where are we going? Well, to the next step, using our cover crops as a tool to manage variability.  For example, in a block like G where we have crests and swales, we’ll disc the cover crop on the crests to conserve water for those vines - because bare dirt holds more water (then reseed but with ‘green manure’ this Fall), and allow the cover crop to grow taller in the swales (because longer grasses take up more water) and reseed later at 50 lbs /acre and stay at 25 lbs/acre everywhere else and mow closer.  In other words not treat a block uniformly if it isn’t uniform to begin with. It is actually pretty exciting.