Salisbury Vineyards

What a lousy growing year but some of us remain hopeful that quality will be good for certain varietals. If nothing else, the wines will be lower in alcohol with higher acidity – more of a French style. In our case, once finished, we will pick about 80% of normal due to a few problems with some of our smaller blocks. The first record breaking spring freeze on April 8 caught our eastside Pinot Grigio block and completely wiped out the crop but the newer west block was unscathed. Our Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon escaped this first frost because we didn’t have bud break yet but we lost about 15% as a result of the following frost.

As for the Chardonnay, we just couldn’t keep up with the organic mineral oil sprays to combat the Powderly Mildew that was an epidemic on the Coast thanks in part to a late rain and a gloomy summer (was there one?). As a result, the Chardonnay was down at least 40% and I wasn’t real proud of the grapes when we delivered them to Harold Osborne, our winemaker. However, after tasting the juice he did his usual “silk purse out of a sow’s ear” which makes it easier for me, the farmer. Even though we dropped a third of our large second year grafted Paso Zinfandel (onto Cab), we should have dropped at least one-half because we are having trouble getting it ripe.

The Pinot Noir was the bright spot as we delivered close to our normal tonnage and with good quality before the early October third rain (1.25 inches). The same is true with our Albariño, this is our second crop year, which is turning out to being a tough and prolific grower and an incredible white wine to boot. At Salisbury Vineyards, we sold out of the first year’s production of 100 cases in just two months. We will pick our cool-weather Syrah on-time even though part of it was affected during bloom time by that late spring rain. Statewide they are calling for the crop to off 10% but I have to believe it is going to be much more. My friends up north say that October’s rain seemed like it went on and on and was devastating. We should get a better idea in mid-November on the final tally.

Now for a report on our Citizen picking crew. After a “Call to Arms” for local unemployed citizens to pick grapes that started in our monthly column in the Avila Valley News and our blog inthevines.com, we were picked up by Cal Coast News, Lewis Perdue’s international “New Fetch” wine blog (you should get it if you want to know what is going on in the wine business worldwide), ‘Wines and Vines’, WineBusiness.com and by KSBY’s television newscast. We had over 80 inquiries for the jobs. We had forty come in and fill out a five page application from which we picked 22 to come in for an interview with four of those not showing up. So we took the 18 remaining and started picking on a Wednesday. That day cost us over $500/ton which is three times the normal. The next day it picked up a little. I was becoming worried because we were getting behind as the Pinot Noir was quickly getting ripe. So we brought in one of our veteran documented crews on the third day. They (75% women) lapped the citizen crew. The fourth day was a Saturday and four of the “citizen crew” didn’t call or show up and at the end of the day we let another six go because they just weren’t up to the job and hadn’t showed any improvement or desire to do so. It was obvious this was their first time in the field or else the first job ever for the younger pickers (some were “volunteered” by their mothers).

That left us with eight, one of whom could only work two weeks resulting in the “Magnificent Seven” (out of 80) and quite a diverse group it is. The leader is a retired Lt. Col. Air Force Chaplin plus an unemployed waitress, graphic designer, a young man from Transitions Health, and three young fellows with various degrees of college education. Three members of this crew do quality control by taking leaves and bad bunches out of the bins plus picking while the others are pure pickers. To date they are averaging around $12/hour. At this point, I wouldn’t trade them for anybody but unquestionably they will not be back next season because they will all certainly get better jobs in the meantime. We had to really chaff through the straw to get the kernels and this process is not sustainable. We are bit lucky here because we are fairly near urban populations. But what about those in the remote rural areas where most of the ag-jobs are? How do they get the unemployed, hours away, to the fields? How are they going to be able to do this with such an unreal dropout rate of over 90% in our case?

Nationwide there is an acute shortage of farm workers to include California. Washington apple growers are running radio ads offering $120 to $150/ day to pick apples with few takers. Washington state officials figure that the agriculture labor force is about 72% “document challenged”. Georgia figures they are 5,200 jobs short for field workers. Alabama, which brought it on themselves with the country’s toughest immigration laws, is reporting huge shortage of labor for construction, agriculture and poultry. Texas is looking for pickers for organic crops without much luck. When these crops are not picked then all the people, mostly US citizen, who process, ship, sell, provide goods and services to all parts of the agribusiness chain also don’t work. The domino effect is tremendous.

Farmers are stuck to the land and do not have the privilege of an Apple or Gap that can move their production to countries with many low wage workers with little protection for the workers. We pay top dollar, regularly inspected by OSHA, EPA, Air Quality Control, Dept. of Pesticide Regulations, Regional Water, and on and on. We supply the safest food in the world at a reasonable price that must rise just by supply and demand if this labor situation is not brought under control. The alternate is the importation of foods grown with $8/day labor with the lack of government oversight on food safety.

We need a guest worker program now. The Obama administration has initiated twice as many immigration enforcement cases against businesses in the first seven months of this year as compared to the year before. The labor pool is drying up because of fears of the migrant worker that are finding out that the business owners can’t risk the penalties and the need for legal documentation. We need a guest worker program with USDA certified employers where taxes are paid, proper wages and working conditions are required, drivers are licensed and insured (most car pool to work), and they must go home for a month or two annually to visit families and take care of business. In a few years, most won’t be back because they will have made enough money to buy a farm, market, or be able to use their acquired skills in business and live where they really want to be - Home.

The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas! Anonymous

John Salisbury is a 6th generation California farmer whose family has been continuously farming in California for 160 years starting in the Sacramento Delta in 1850. He has farmed many different crops throughout the Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Imperial Valleys plus a couple of years near Los Mochis, Mexico. John now concentrates on farming 35 acres of winegrapes in the Avila Valley, south of San Luis Obispo, and 10 acres in Paso Robles as Salisbury Vineyards. His wife, daughter, son-in-law and soon his son all have an active role in producing award winning wines sold in their renovated 104-year-old two room schoolhouse. His goal in life is to “corrupt” at least one of his four grandchildren to be the eight generation farmer. The articles in this InTheVines.com blog also appear in the monthly Avila Community News and Cal Coast News

Follow John's blogs at: IntheVines.com

FARMING IN CALIFORNIA SINCE 1850