(Another) Year in the Vineyard Wine Blog, Weeks 15 and 16 by Wes Hagen

(Another) Year in the Vineyard:  The Two Week Edition:  Week 15 and 16:  June 18 – July 1, 2010 San Fran, Big Sur, and Back to the Ranch!   The vintage is proceeding to plan, and the early Summer is slipping away.  After Spring and frost patrol, after the crew has been at work long enough to be on autopilot and the shoot positioning, leaf pulling and irrigation is all in order, Chanda and I usually disappear North for a week to San Francisco, for Pinot Days. I’m writing this week’s (and last week’s) blog in the quiet, rustic confines of Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn, one of our favorite places in the world.  The fire is crackling, outside the fog stumbles and swirls through the trunks of ancient redwoods, and the air seems to be thick with oxygen and a mellow nonchalance that reflects the artistic and deliberate slow pace that defines Big Sur.  Even the words seem to appear slower on my screen, the tapping of the keyboard  more deliberate in the knowledge that Henry Miller or Allen Ginsberg