An Investment That Grows in Volatile Times

Canary Island Palm

Wasn't it beginning to feel a bit like 2008?  My friends were wondering if they should cash out their stock portfolios and put the money in a mattress, buy gold or head for the hills. In another deja-vu scene, Joe The Wino laid-off 15% of his workforce--just as he did in 2008--and the Dow started its descent the very next day. (Is he a genius businessman or what?) I was reminded our our "Jack and the Beanstalk" tale of 2008 when the Queen spent the last of our life savings on 46 palm trees. I'm pleased to report that this is one investment that has grown during the last three years. Here's an excerpt from the Oct. 2008 post, as timeless now as it was then.

"....We live in interesting times and we’re one whoops away from the Great Depression of 2008. Stocks have dropped 20% and college tuition has gone up to $50,000/year and there’s no money in my bank account and the princess calls from New York City saying there’s no money in her bank account, and Bluey the dog growls "hungry" and there’s no food in his bag and there’s no money to buy any today. It’s all the fault of our greedy mortgage broker who put us into a house we couldn’t afford so we could pursue the cock-eyed dream of a vineyard. Because of his greed the world economy is about to collapse. But, there’s hope (besides the fact that we can live off the land, have our guns to hunt game of rabbit, squirrels and gophers and there’s a church at the bottom of the mountain where we can cling to religion): The Queen saves money like a smart squirrel hoarding acorns. She has $1,677 in her savings account and she has taken that, plus my last $100 and assembled $1,777.77 which was the bill for 46 Canary Island Palm trees, given to our daughter on the joyous occasion of her 20th birthday. Does this sound like "Jack and the Beanstalk"? This is either extreme foolishness or genius.

"I’d go to Las Vegas," said the salesperson at the nursery who unloaded the palms for quick cash. "Buy a lottery ticket. It’s not every day that a receipt has five 7’s in a row." Perhaps a roll of the dice would have been a wiser investment?

The 46 palm trees are delivered on Monday and at $10,000 each (future value) we now have an additional $460,000 in assets (future value) less:
The cost of hauling them to designated points on the property
The cost of digging holes and planting
The cost of chiropractic care (for my back)
The cost of watering
The cost of making boxes (and of dirt) for those we don’t plant
And, 50 years from now, when our "bonds" have reached their mature "face value" of $10,000 each, the cost of building roads and renting a crane to pull these puppies out of the ground (this should be slightly less than drilling for oil in the Arctic wilderness)
Less the cost of sales (in case the Princess is unable to sell them direct to consumers and goes through a wholesale nursery)

After pulling a near all-nighter on Friday night bottling, I am pressed to plant palm trees on Saturday. And Sunday. I go to sleep with my clothes on. I plot on getting even: "These palm trees are my favorite palm trees and my dream," I inform the Queen and, "They’re half mine." I explain how I’ve earned 50% sweat equity from planting them and suffering a thousand piercings from the needles. Given the fact that stocks are likely to go lower next week – at least our stocks --the palm trees, now worth more than our house, are looking like a pretty good investment, guaranteed to grow. Just add water."

Before Palm Sunday Feeling The Pain

In 2008 with the darkening clouds of The Great Recession gathering on the horizon the Queen took the last of her life savings and purchased 48 Canary Island Palm trees, known to academics and master gardeners as Pheonix Canarienisis, but known to my friends by the more common name "my favorite palm tree." There was something Jack-and-the-Beanstalkess about spending your last dime on a worthless plant and having that lead to the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs but those palm trees for which she paid less than $49 a piece are on their way to being worth $10,000 each (before deducting the costs of hiring workers to dig them out, renting a crane to lift them up and paying commissions to a sales broker to find them homes), which is to say they are growing and need a hair cut.

What better time to trim them than in preparation for Palm Sunday, and besides, the needles on the large fronds closest to the trunk of the palm pose a threat to Bluey who enjoys watering them with his hose each morning. "Would you please cut those palms," requests the Queen, who starts singing a song about how I do nothing in the vineyard, and don't take care of the weeds, and how it's her vineyard and her palm trees and don't you care about your dog who's always going pee-pee at the foot of the palms and is about to be impaled (if not circumcised) by them.

Armed with hand clippers, a saw and a loper and I begin the task and quickly feel that a knight's shinning armour would provide better protection to my hands than canvas gloves. A poke to the forearm here, a poke to to the hand there and the shirt I'm wearing exhibits expanding stains of blood, not wine, which I don't think too much about until I remember stories about flesh-eating bacteria entering innocuous cuts and it's probably not a bad idea to wipe the punctured flesh with an alcohol swab, which I do, and consume a shot of grappa for extra protection. A few days pass and I notice in the mirror that my whole right forearm looks like a rotting banana. A spreading infection? Since I'm heading to a reception where a few doctor friends are likely to be, I decide to ask them. My college classmate Ted Hendershot from Lexington, KY is there. "Ted, what kind of doctor are you?" I ask as I pour him a glass of Blue-Merle wine, which I gladly share in exchange for advice.

"Infectious diseases."

"Perfect, take another pour and have a look at this, will you" as I roll up my sleeve to expose my arm.

"That looks like a bruise, not an infection. Keep an eye on it."

So I keep an eye on it and each night lay my good hand upon it and recite a healing prayer. Palm Sunday is here. The bruise is gone. Praise the Lord.

What's Your Story?

We were contacted by a nice young man from Winemaking magazine who found "our story" interesting and asked us to send him some more details about how we got started, our trials and tribulations and where we are today for an upcoming article. Here is his response: "Craig, Thank you for the document. Unfortunately I cannot run this - there just isn't enough to run. Have you ever read winemaker? I would need 1 -2 pages of "your winemaking story.' Blue Merle, how it started, tips and tricks, trials and tribulations, and where you are now - that kind of thing. Unfortunately, I would need something by the end of the day at this point to make deadline. Thanks again, Cheers! Jeremy" Not enough content to run? Hmmm..... here's my response: Dear Jeremy, Don't give up yet.... There's 6 years of "content" on the Internet, and we can cut and paste. Just tell me what you want (or you grab what you want). On this website: http://www.winemakersjournal.com/winemaking.html You'll notice a link to our very first winemaking effort in 2004 (very well documented), then year 2 and so on. As for the vineyard, our vineyard installation experience is documented here: http://www.winemakersjournal.com/vineyardinstallationindex.html I have to be honest with you: there's only so many times you can write about what it's like punching down the cap and the crush and the harvest ... believe me, those are wonderful life experiences ... but we've been there, done that ... so, our writing has changed ... in the beginning, the writing was about the grapes and the wine and how amazing it was and what a gift from the Lord the grape is. We've written about that. It's always there and doesn't change. Now the writing's about people (Coyote Karen, Merlot Mike, Joe the Wino, that rascal Fidel and of course, Bluey, the Blue-Merle Aussie that runs the place) and friendship and betrayal and marriage and the economy and life framed around the vineyard, the grape and the wine. And that's a big part of "our story." Where we are now? We're a bonded winery by the TTB and a licensed winery by the California ABC. Our wines are for sale. Where are we going? The U.S. Constitution says that congress shall make no law interfering with free trade among the States. However, the grape is held hostage. There are Australian Shepherds in Oklahoma who want to buy our wine, direct from Bluey at the winery. We are not allowed to ship to them. That is the next frontier. And finally, at the beginning of the recession, the Queen spent the last of our savings account purchasing 47 Canary Island Phoenix Canaries palm trees in 15 gallon plants. Well, the drought in California was officially declared over yesterday, the economy is growing and the palm trees are getting bigger. Maybe it was a good investment.

Controlling Runaway Sugars & Harvest Date With Irrigation

At times I feel like an airplane captain charged with bringing this commercial flight in with the smoothest possible landing, especially after last year's fiasco when it was more like a jet fighter landing on an aircraft carrier at night slamming down the tail hook and almost skidding off the deck. I had already made an announcement to the passengers that this was the last chance to get up and stretch their legs as we would soon be preparing for landing (while our pilot friends in Napa Valley, far to the north of here, are just getting round to serving cocktails on their flight). The weather turned warm 9 days ago and as expected the sugars in the then purple grapes began to rise. It was time to check how much. I took a representative sample of 20 berries from each block measuring the juice with a refractometer. The results (as of 8 p.m. Aug. 20):

Tempranillo: 19.5 brix
Zinfandel: 21.5 brix
Petit Sirah: 16.0 brix

The shocker was the Zin, because the Tempranillo started and finished veraison before the Zin, and I was planning to harvest the Tempranillo first. In addition, I've been consistently irrigating the Zin with more water this year than last (when a heat wave struck this time last year sending the Zin sugars to 28 brix while the acid was still high).

I tasted the Zin grape juice, and sure enough, my mouth puckered at the tartness and extremely high acid. "Ladies and gentlemen this is the Captain. The good news is we're ahead of schedule, but on the ground there's a plane stuck in our gate. Air Traffic Control has put the Zin flight into a holding pattern." In other words, we're turning up the water (or in this case, planning to give it its normal irrigation). So, this morning (Aug 21) I watered the Tempranillo and Petit Sirah for 45 minutes (except for the 2 longest and most fruitful rows of PS which got none); the Grenache for 1 hour and the Zin for 2 hours.

If you're concerned about our precious water resources, the Blue-Merle's water usage in July was 43 HCF (31% less than our allocation) with a cost of $157 for 1,150 vines plus alpha (alpha being the "family fruit trees" avocados, macadamias, olives, figs, peaches, oranges, tangelos, lemons, limes, persimmons, kumquats, pomplemousse, etc. and the 47 Canary Island Palm trees the Queen purchased with our last savings at the start of the recession which are now worth more than our house).

For the record, the small block of Durif (aka Petit Sirah) vines at the bottom of the hill are done: the sugars taste perfect, the berries are wrinkled. These are always the first to budbreak in the Spring and the first to ripen. We'll let them go ... it's only a couple of gallons of juice at most and at harvest their over-ripeness will contribute rich flavors to the overall Petit Sirah harvest.

Seasonal warm weather is forecast for the next week with the Tempranillo and Petit Sirah flights preparing for smooth landings in September. I wonder how turbulent the Zinfandel approach will be and if the Captain's actions will deliver a harvest with perfect sugars, acid and pH?

Update as of August 28th:

Zinfandel: 23 brix; pH=3.15; TA = 1.35
Tempranillo: 22 brix; pH=3.6; TA = .94

Watered Zin last Saturday (full watering, about 1.5 hrs) and Tempranillo (about 45 minutes); watered Zin again on Tuesday in middle of heat wave; watered Zin today (Sat. 8/28) for one hour. No water for Tempranillo. Temperatures of turned seasonably cool today for end of August. Let's see what next week brings.) Here we are, watering a drought resistant plant, in order to control sugars and ripening. This is why we're wine growers, not grape growers.

Full Moons & Fires

It was the week of the full moon in Blue Merle Country, almost bright enough to read a newspaper under the night-time sky. It’s the time to hunt gophers without night vision goggles. It’s the time to take an evening stroll through the vineyard to enjoy the magic of this time of the month. It’s mid-October, and it’s warm enough to walk under the stars and the moon without a sweater. The Santa Ana winds are blowing in from the dessert, and I suppose that the snakes are out and about looking for that last meal before hibernation. Not wanting to be mistaken for that meal, I bring a shovel, making my presence known to all in the area. Some might call it paranoia. I call it common sense, especially since we found 12 snakes the first two weeks we moved here two years ago. I’m on a mission, to investigate the smoke rising from the West. It’s "fire season" in San Diego and I’m climbing to the top of the hill of the vineyard to examine the scene below, where flames become visible in the valley. The fire looks much closer than it is – but if the wind shifts, we could be in trouble, so I pack a bag, important papers and the computer and put them by the door just in case. My father used to joke about "sleeping with one eye open." That skill will come in handy this evening, as the flames are visible from the house where I set up my stake out.

It was the first day of Gopher Season, which opens when the bulk of the winemaking is behind us and at least one car fits in the garage. I was setting the first traps of the season when Merlot Mike and Nancy, out for a joy ride, drove over in the Gator. "Every time you come here I catch a gopher," I tell Mike. "Let’s see if it works again this time." We had just finished bottling wine three days before, so we broke open a couple of bottles for tasting. It was getting dark as they left, "another hour of sun wasted" I thought, but it was good to see them. It wasn’t the light that was lost, but water. In my rush to welcome them, I forgot to turn off the irrigation. The Queen called me at the office the next morning to report a flood cascading down the hill. There was no gopher in the trap – Mike’s hitting streak was up but we verified one in the area. Mr. Gopher back-filled the hole where we set the trap, so the hunt was on with me setting a trap, and Mr. Gopher back filling it. I set a good one yesterday, deep into the hole, and found a succulent root for bait. As Bluey and I made the rounds the morning, he froze in his "Gopher Dog" point and I suspected we caught one. When I arrived on the scene, Bluey had already pulled on the chain of the trap and there was Mr. Gopher, squeezed between the tongs. Without gophercide nor dynamite, so long Mr. Gopher! I throw him over the fence for the coyotes to snack on.

The saga of the 46 Phoenix Canarius palm trees (or, if you prefer the less scientific name, those [expletive deleted] palm trees) continued, with more digging, piercings and swearings. Merlot Mike called, "Can I bring over the Gator and help you move those trees up the mountain?" I explained to him no thank you, because this is my penitence, to atone for all the iniquities, sins and wrong doings during 20 years of marriage. It seems I am not the sole Martyr of the Palms. The Queen attempts to help me lift one of the trees into a hole, and her hand is pierced by a needle. Without a word she walks up the hill to the house, stoically bearing the sign of the "stigmata."

It’s been one year since we evacuated from the Great San Diego fires of 2007 and camped at Coyote Karen’s mom’s house. There were the Queen, Bluey & myself, Coyote Karen and her sidekick Pinot Noir "We’re Drunk" Sandra with her two shitzus, Merlot Mike’s cat (whom we called "kitty" and locked into the bathroom); Jack, Judy, Chuckie (the medical miracle with Down’s Syndrome) and their two golden retrievers (Max & Maggie) and a couple of cats. We were a mini Noah’s Ark – not having to worry about bringing a wine dog, Coyote Karen brought her wine collection and was very liberal with her libations. Might as well enjoy a good class of wine while your house burns. We sipped, and watched distant flames lapping hill tops.

Our houses didn’t burn this time (thanks in part to Sandra’s husband Jim who stayed behind to defend the neighborhood) – and this day, one year later, Karen called to say her brother (who co-hosted us refugees last year) was coming down for a visit. Would we join them for some brisket? Now the best brisket I’ve ever tasted was at The Salt Lick outside of Austin, Texas 11 months ago and the second best in the world is made by my cousins in Oklahoma. Ole Coyote Karen had lived in Texas herself a few years and must of learned a thing or two because I now declare her the Princess of Brisket, and I don’t say that just to flatter her in hopes of being granted privileged access to her wine collection or other hidden gems. "I added a can of coke and wine to the recipe," she explains, and I suggest that what’s good for beef should be good for gopher meat and I offer to go and find the carcass of the fresh one we caught this morning.

After the nourishment, it’s back to the "winery" and racking wines into the refurbished French barrel. I’m told there are two kinds of barrels: Burgundy and Bordeaux. I can’t tell you if the difference influences the taste of the wine – but the thinner barrel we got last year fit through the side door of the garage. The one we received on Saturday does not. But, this one doesn’t leak. The work begins at 2:30pm and finishes at 8:30pm, and the Queen starts singing some very melodic songs about how she never dreamed about "making wine" – that she only wanted a vineyard. I suggest that she go and plant a palm tree or something – which I’m glad NOT to be doing as I blend the Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot into a "Merleatage" (named after Bluey) wine. The Cabernet Franc tastes good for a 3-week old wine, the Malbec is surprising good and "spritzy" from malolatic fermentation, but the PV I’m not so sure about so we’ll see how the "2008 Merleatage" turns out. After that’s done – and I take a break from racking to plant a palm tree (which turned out to be our best financial investment of the week) – we rack "Bluey’s Blush", our first rose wine… and it tastes pretty good! (I’ll spare you the comments about how it has a "banana nose.") We come inside, enjoy the leftover blush topping wine chilled from the freezer, then open a bottle of 2007 Petit Verdot, which was just bottled a few weeks ago… and I’m thinking, what a difference a year makes.

The Art of Wine Blending & Another Disaster Narrowly Avoided

Definitions:

PV = Petit Verdot.
PS = Petit Sirah
Queen = the woman who runs this place, whose dream it was to own a vineyard
Phoenix canariensis = my favorite palm tree
Disaster = when you mistakenly turn a barrel of wine (street value $7,000) into vinegar
PP = Petit Sirah / Petit Verdot blend in approximate equal amounts
pp = what the dog does when he goes out, as in: "Le chien fait son pis-pis…."

(Editor’s note: I assure you there is no pp in the PP but we guarantee "hair of the dog" in every bottle.)

Since planning the layout of our vines, our rule for making decisions has been: "Vineyard is Art." More so for the blending of wines. For over a year I have been raving about the "floral characteristics" of this Petit Verdot (PV) we were fortunate enough to source from Gerry Meisenholder, owner of Arroyo Vineyard in nearby Bonsall, CA. I liked the fruit so much, we invested in a French-oak barrel for it. The general consensus about PV is it’s a great blending wine, but not strong enough to stand on its own. I thought we would buck the trend, and produce something different – a unique PV with enough character to star as the main attraction. What’s more, since PV is fairly uncommon, it would be a good marketing niche. In May 2008, just 8 months after harvest, I entered the PV into competition at the San Diego County fair. An 8 month old wine, mind you. Knowing full well that it had not fully matured, I added character to it by blending in some Nebbiolo – a prince of Italian grapes, which I nicknamed "Petit Verdot Plus." The result: a wine fit for royalty, and a 2nd place ribbon in the "blended red" category. (This for an 8 month wine that had no bottle aging…) I felt I was on to something. The plan was simple. I had 5-gallons of the 2006 Nebbiolo left, and decided to blend this with 15 gallons of PV. This would leave me 45-gallons of pure, 100% PV to market as a stand alone wine, and giving consumers a chance to sample a wine that normally they wouldn’t have an opportunity to taste. The problem was this: as good as the PV is, it just didn’t have the "complexity" that one would expect in a fine wine. The decisive moment came three weeks ago, when Mick from Belle Marie Winery, Coyote Karen, Merlot Mike and I met to discuss San Diego wine politics, and I pulled a sample of PV from the barrel to share. The silence was defining. I had hoped to share the PV with Mick to create a joint-venture "Opus One" – no such offer was forthcoming. Merlot Mike took me into his winery and gave me a jar of "tannin" – add this, he suggested, as if to spice it up. It was as bland to him as rice without sushi, as oatmeal without milk, as Merlot without the "fine."

Back to the drawing board. Once the decision was made that something needed to be added, the next question was what? We had some Brunello that would blend nicely – but from a marketing point of view didn’t make much sense. I tried blending in some 2007 Merlot – but the Merlot’s dominant characteristics overpowered the PV. And then there was the barrel of Petit-Petit, the 50-50 blend of Petit Verdot & Petit Sirah. That Petit Sirah, invented by Dr. Durif, so purple, so powerful – and that blended combination, so promising.

Saturday (September 27th) was the hottest day we have had in September, and was bottling day. The marathon started at 7am and continued until 10pm – requiring the stamina of a 26 mile race, but no need to throw-up. It’s a dreaded day…. Like driving from North Carolina to New York… but the rewards await. The first part was easy … use the siphon hose to pull 15 gallons of PV from the barrel into a storage container, then rack in the 5-gallons of award-winning 2006 Nebbiolo. 103 bottles produced … folks, this is a winner, as the judges have already declared.

If bottling were just bottling, it might not be so bad. But, there’s preparation, then racking. When you empty one barrel, you need to immediately fill it up with the new wine because empty barrels invite microbes. And, when it’s all said and done, there’s cleaning up.
Next, I pull 10 gallons from the Petit-Petit (PP) barrel (which was 50% PV and 50% Petit Sirah) for blending with the remaining Petit Verdot. But, in order to keep the PP barrel full, I pull out 10 gallons of PV, then siphon it over to the other barrel, to keep it topped. All of this takes time.
(Time for a math exercise: … 35 gallons of PV blended with 10 gallons of a 50%-50%- PV/PS blend results in 45 gallons, 5 of which are PS and 40 of which are PV, and 5/40 = 12.5%, except, it didn’t exactly happen that way and the actual mixture is one batch with 10% PS and another batch with about 15% PS and the batch with 15% Petit Sirah (PS) tastes better and we labeled that one PV (good) for internal purposes while the other is just PV. [Do all winemaker’s go through this?]

This is how I almost turned $7,000 of wine into vinegar. The pump is the greatest invention since the wheel, at least for winemakers. Using a siphon hose used to add hours to the bottling/racking marathon, but a pump can empty a barrel of wine in minutes (or fill a barrel up with new wine). As I was setting the pump up, I accidentally hit the on switch, which disgorged a reddish, brown liquid. "Vinegar!" Somehow, I had not cleaned it out properly the last time I used it, and had it not been for the accident of turning it on, that vinegar would have been injected into the batch of Petit Verdot, with unthinkable consequences.
In summary: This PV with a touch of Petit Sirah is better than 100% PV, while the PP (which is now about 60% PV and 40% PS is better than both) and the PV Plus (with 20% Nebbiolo is already a proven award winner. All of this is back breaking work and the Queen whose dream it was to own a vineyard never dreamed about this and is singing a lot of songs about how this is not what she dreamed about.

I am saved from a knockout punch by the bell. The door bell. It’s Lera from Colorado with her brother Micah and his fiancée Megan who’ve flown in for a "tour" of the little vineyard on the mountainside and the so-called winery in the garage on Sunday afternoon. Special guests deserve special wine and we open a bottle of the 2006 Nebbiolo – it has become silky smooth and it tastes great and I’m thinking that the price has just gone up another $5 to $39/bottle. We also serve some of the leftover PV from the night before, and I’m thinking the initial taste is good, but I’m not sure about the finish and we’ll need to see what 6-months in the bottle does to this. Still, the company is great and the wine is delicious and there goes Sunday afternoon and here comes the heat wave. Summer has arrived and it’s almost October. The chain saw will have to wait.

Fast forward to Friday …. The Queen said she wanted to bottle the PP on Friday night. We started at 7pm and finished at 2:30 am and got it all bottled, close to 24 cases and 280 bottles and Saturday started out as a slow day and turned into it’s own marathon, death by 1,000 cuts from palm trees.

The Queen is always singing a song about how the vineyard is her dream, not mine, and how dare me for usurping her dream. Well now we’re even, because since we moved to San Diego 14 years ago "my favorite palm tree" has been the Canary Island Date Palm and every time we drive by one I’ll raise my hand, point, and say, "That’s my favorite palm." The Princess will say, "Dad, you’ve told me that already," but it doesn’t stop me from saying it again when we pass the next tree. When we moved to Blue-Merle country and started clearing the land my parents offered to purchase us a tree as a gift. "Thanks dad – I’ll take just one of my favorite palm trees." I then told him they cost $10,000 (plus delivery, which requires a crane.) He sent a $150 gift card instead and we bought a dozen Macadamia trees (another dream and another story).

I’m going on and on about winemaking and blending and vineyards but we live in interesting times and we’re one whoops away from the Great Depression of 2008. Stocks have dropped 20% and college tuition has gone up to $50,000/year and there’s no money in my bank account and the princess calls from New York City saying there’s no money in her bank account, and Bluey the dog growls "hungry" and there’s no food in his bag and there’s no money to buy any today. It’s all the fault of our greedy mortgage broker who put us into a house we couldn’t afford so we could pursue the cock-eyed dream of a vineyard. Because of his greed the world economy is about to collapse. But, there’s hope (besides the fact that we can live off the land, have our guns to hunt game of rabbit, squirrels and gophers and there’s a church at the bottom of the mountain where we can cling to religion): The Queen saves money like a smart squirrel who hoards acorns. She has $1,677 in her savings account and she has taken that, plus my last $100 and assembled $1,777.77 which was the bill for 46 Canary Island Palm trees, given to our daughter on the joyous occasion of her 20th birthday. Does this sound like "Jack and the Beanstalk"? This is either extreme foolishness or genius.

"I’d go to Las Vegas," said the salesperson at the nursery who unloaded the palms for quick cash. "Buy a lottery ticket. It’s not every day that a receipt has five 7’s in a row." Perhaps a roll of the dice would have been a wiser investment?

The 46 palm trees are delivered on Monday and at $10,000 each (future value) we now have an additional $460,000 in assets (future value) less:
The cost of hauling them to designated points on the property
The cost of digging holes and planting
The cost of chiropractic care (for my back)
The cost of watering
The cost of making boxes (and of dirt) for those we don’t plant
And, 50 years from now, when our "bonds" have reached their mature "face value" of $10,000 each, the cost of building roads and renting a crane to pull these puppies out of the ground (this should be slightly less than drilling for oil in the Arctic wilderness)
Less the cost of sales (in case the Princess is unable to sell them direct to consumers and goes through a wholesale nursery)

After pulling a near all-nighter on Friday night bottling, I am pressed to plant palm trees on Saturday. And Sunday. I go to sleep with my clothes on. I plot on getting even: "These palm trees are my dream," I inform the Queen and, "They’re half mine." I explain how I’ve earned 50% sweat equity from planting them and suffering a thousand piercings from the needles. Given the fact that stocks are likely to go lower next week – at least our stocks --the palm trees, now worth more than our house, are looking like a pretty good investment, guaranteed to grow. Just add water.

New Seasons & New Beginnings

This is the week of new seasons and new beginnings. The leaves of trees and vines are yellowing, and the calendar says autumn has officially begun. The harvests and fermentations are done, and we look next to bottling and the renewal of gopher season . (Watch out Mr. Gopher, I have recently seen “Caddy Shack” since our last confrontation and you are in trouble!) And, last but not least, this is the day when our cars are allowed to return to the garage, which calls for a celebration.

Celebration …. That reminds me. There seems to be something else about this day. I can’t quite get my fogged brain around it. September 24th.... The autumn equinox? The harvest moon? No, no. That’s not it. Ah, yes. The Princess’ birthday. I am the father of a 20-year old this day. Congratulations to me. Or more appropriately, congratulations to the Princess’ Mother, The Queen. I suppose the next thing the Princess will be asking for, after a dog (“Daddy, I’ll take care of him”) and a $3,000 bike (“Daddy, I’ll ride it every day”) will be a date. No, not from a palm tree. Speaking of palm trees, the Queen bought the Princess a harem of palm trees for her birthday present. She bought out the nursery. 46 of them. Not just any palm tree, but the famed “canarius” – the Canary Island Date Palm. These trees sell for $10,000 each, and as the Queen says, the investment can’t be beat. You buy a small tree for $35, put it out in the yard, and 50 years later sell it for $10,000, leaving the Princess with an inheritance of $460,000 when we ascend to the great vineyard in the sky. She ignores questions such as: where are you going to plant those? What are you going to do when they start growing? (These trees are enormous). But never mind, it’s the Princess’ birthday and the Queen can have her way for the day.

But what are we to do about that date thing? The Princess has just arrived in New York City, and the first thing she says is, “Daddy, I just met these two French guys ….” So let’s set the record straight young gentlemen. If you’re even thinking of asking my daughter for a date, here are the 10 questions which must be answered:
1) How many Canary Island Date Palm Trees can you plant in a day?
2) Which part of Paulliac is your vineyard located?
3) How far away is your chateau from Baron Phillip’s?
4) What year did you graduate from Ecole Polytechnique?
5) How many pounds (or kilograms) can you carry?
6) How many guest rooms does your Paris apartment have?
7) Do you prefer “Freedom” oak or American oak?
8) How do you spell “Barack”?
9) Do you know what a shotgun is?
10) Do you understand: “Ne touchez pas!”

Happy Birthday, Princess. (And don’t forget to water your trees!) I’d write more, but Paso Robles Bill has just brought us 200 lbs. of Cabernet Franc grapes which need dealing with – looks like I’ll need to get the cars out of the garage again. Mama threw away all of your old Barbies, Beanie Babies and photographs to make room for the wine. Love, Papa & Bluey.