Salisbury Vineyards

AVILA VALLEY GRAPEVINE – 12 – 07

I have a very personal confession to make. I am a compulsive gambler. I wake up a few hours before dawn and roll dice until sunset at least six days a week and mostly seven. I have made and lost fortunes gambling; however, I don’t visit Las Vegas, Reno, Indian Casinos, or even the internet. I am a farmer and gamble in the dirt right here in our backyard. I come from a continuous long line of habitual gamblers going back to 1850 in California and to pre and post American Revolution times from Ohio to Maine. Who knows how far back in history we have farmed in our ancestral homes in Great Britain (Druids?), Mexico, and Spain. It is in my DNA. I can’t cure myself or even check into rehab because it is so ingrained it wouldn’t do any good.

I sit across the Blackjack table from the dealer (Mother Nature) looking at her face card which represents the present weather conditions and our stormy past relationship. I get dealt a couple of cards. One is the farming operations and the other my family and employees. Meanwhile, the dealer is sitting on her hold card face down. The gamble becomes how much do I bet of the family’s, investor’s, and employee’s livelihood against the unknown card without going bust?

Do I stick my neck out and plant a 40 acre vineyard in a risky area (Avila Valley) that was passed over by several knowledgeable vintners at a time when large wine surpluses were looming and the Dot-com bubble collapse? At the same time (2000), maybe buy a couple of 100 year old rundown buildings to convert into a tasting room before knowing whether the wine will even be very good. How about planting Albarino (a Spanish white) at $25,000 an acre in Avila and the home ranch in the Sacramento River Delta thinking it might be the next Pinot Noir even though there are only 300 acres planted in the State? We don’t even know for sure if it will even grow here or up North, let alone make a good wine. Well, of course, we did all of the above really not unlike any other entrepreneur that takes on the risks and bets on the come. The biggest difference is that we are subjected much more to the elements that we can’t control and must react to problems as fast as possible with all the resources we can muster or lose the whole crop.

Now what about that last card she is holding – is it the environmental one? Will we have a drought year, El Nino, or for once the elusive “normal” year? How many more cards is she going to take for herself and what devious things is she and the house going to deal me next – pestilence, recession, prohibition, dramatically increased costs of production, restrictions by unchecked governmental “regulators”, market slowdown, crop failure, - what? Because the family is in this for at least the next couple of generations, what about this Global Warming thing? Are Avila Valley, Paso Robles, and the Delta going to still be viable places to grow our temperate climate winegrapes in the future?

A side note. Very recently, in Earth-time, in the mid-70’s I was in my impressionable young thirties and completely bought into the upcoming Ice Age hype. After all, it was right there in black and white in Time and Newsweek magazines, the Bibles of the era! I decided to hedge my bets and move part of my asparagus and processing tomato operations as far south as I could go to the Mexican border near Calexico. So forgive me if I don’t completely buy in, at this time, on this new man-made Global Warming phenomenon go-around – the old “fool me once, fool me twice” routine applies. Sure, we are part of the problem, but whatever is happening is presently a great thing for agriculture because yields per acre are up 15% worldwide. Plus, they are planting vegetables again in Greenland like they did from at least the 10th up to the 16th century, vineyards included, until the approaching Little Ice Age made it impossible. Is Global Warming mostly a “what goes around - comes around” scenario?

Now comes the face-off and we both show our cards. For this hand it looks like a push - we both got 21. It appears we will be able to sell enough wine this year, thanks to many of you, to break even after 8 years since planting in Avila Valley. Also, many Industry forecasts predict a new golden era ahead in the wine business. Merry Christmas from our family & crew to yours! “Here’s to all of us, God bless us everyone!” (Tiny Tim’s Toast from The Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens)