Posts made in June, 2014

We’re lucky to occasionally see Roosevelt elk (Cervus elaphus roosevelti) at our Sky Meadow Ranch, near Douglas City. Herds of these magnificent animals once ranged from San Francisco to British Columbia, and from the Pacific Ocean to the summit of the Cascade Mountain. Today their range is limited to the northernmost California counties, up through western Oregon and Washington, to Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Once...

Every day, new leaves unfold. Every day brings new challenges…and new solutions.   We love this work.  ...

We currently have two vineyard locations: the 50-acre Oliva Vineyard, with ten acres under vine, is the source for our current wines. The other vineyard location, at Summit Creek Ranch, is home to our test vineyards. Our Summit Creek Ranch test vineyards are each two years old. The Hillside Vineyard is testing the 777 Pinot Noir clone (a real fruit bomb), and the Lucy Vineyard (named after a sweet black lab, now gone), is testing...

When we travel any distance from home, we hear the same thing: “You’re from where?!” Hayfork. The name refers to what fertile soils and mild weather turned into the most prosperous agricultural area in the area. Located in Northern California’s Trinity County, Hayfork is located halfway between Redding and Eureka, and surrounded by the vast Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The Hayfork Valley is an alluvial basin filled with sediments...

Pinot Noir’s home is in France’s Burgundy region, particularly in Côte-d’Or, and its name comes from the French words for “pine” and “black”; the pine alluding to the grape’s having tightly clustered, pine cone-shaped bunches of fruit. Pinot Noir produces some of the finest wines in the world, but is a prima donna when it comes to cultivation and transformation into wine. It is “sensitive to wind and frost,...