Ledge Vineyards

I spent most of the day today building a chicken coop, and we look forward to welcoming our new flock in the coming days (photos to come). We also have some pretty major vineyard projects going on. As much as it pained us, we ripped out about 2 acres of vines this week. It was half of our original block of Estrella clone Syrah, planted in 2005 when, frankly, I was either at Saxum assisting Justin Smith in the cellar or commuting back and forth to Sony Pictures raising farming funds in the editorial studio. As a result of this preoccupation with survival, the vines did not have full-time attention and we lost a fair amount of them. They provided us with 11 vintages of great Syrah and we are grateful, but now is the time to replant and make the block stronger than ever. We will diversify the block as we replant with Syrah, Mourvèdre, Cinsaut, Counoise, Roussanne and Clairette (we have our eyes set on an estate white wine when fortune and demand prevail.