Bibliographies are traditionally presented at the end of an article, but there is a book that proved so central to the production of this article that it must be given a leading role, a beauty shot and a recommendation for purchase. This seminal work of viticultural research is called Sunlight Into Wine by Dr. Richard Smart. I honestly believe that Dr. Smart’s research is as important to viticulture as Louis Pasteur’s inquiry was to winemaking (Pasteur is credited with early descriptions of primary and malolactic microbial fermentation in a laboratory). So to save you some time and to get you growing good grapes, may I suggest ordering a copy from the UC-Davis bookstore (http://ucdavisstores.com) before going any further into this article? It’s $51 at UC-Davis, and $100 at Amazon, so I saved you $50 to buy some nice wine! The legacy of Dr. Smart is nothing less than the metamorphosis of viticulture from a largely anecdotal production system to a method of farming based on actual data and hard science. There were certainly huge advancers supported by UC-Davis (Winkler), Cal
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