who's vineyard is that one........

Cellar Rats (ITB)
1

…on the east side of 101, a ways north of Paso Robles before you get to King City? Its HUGE, about 6+ miles long and gotta be at least a mile or so wide…

2

That’s the Lockwood area. Funnny, we commented on it the other day driving by…looks like a rolling green sea, absolutely impressive in a massive way and seamless.

There’s Chalk Knoll, Paris Valley, and Estancia Vineyards. Probabley a few others as well.

3

Jess Jackson’s, I think. Hundreds of acres of Chardonnay, Pinot, Sauv Blanc. Unbelievable, isn’t it?

4

Is that going into industrial high volume stuff guys? Tons of vineyards in that area on both sides of the freeway.

5

Can you say $10-15 “Central Coast” Chardonnay? pileon

6

My bad…you’re correct John. Estancia is on the west side of 101.

7

Kind of what I figured. Tons of vineyards below and near the more famous SLH sites also. I did a little roaming around on my drive back from Napa.

8

I can just imagine the number of people it would take to harvest that vineyard next month…

9

Not as many as some.

10

exactly!

11

How the hell does that thing get every cluster without trashing the vine itself?

12

Also picks up second crop and beats the hell out of the fruit.

LOVE machine harvesting… [suicide.gif]

13

There are shaker bars that shake the shit out of the t posts/vineyard stakes. the berries literaly rain off the trusses/stems- caught and conveyered up into bins- check out the machanical harvest thread- they are actually quite efficient.

14

Don’t knock it 'till you’ve done it.

I had my own preconceptions destroyed about mechanical harvesting about 5 years back (and they’ve probably improved by leaps and bounds since then). I haven’t worked with any since but wouldn’t be the least bit reluctant to do so again in the right situation.

That being said, I’d be much much less inclined to like it for whites and I’m certainly not suggesting those vineyards are going to go into great bottles of wine. They will go into wherever the ol’ supply chain folks for those companies deem it necessary (ie whatever is selling). I don’t think that is necessarily the fault of the harvesting method.

15

I think the vyd you are thinking of might actually be owned by Scheid, no? They have a small one next to their production facility but I could have sworn that the huge one near King City was theirs / / /

Cheers!

16

This ranch map for Monterey County might help: http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/ag/RanchMaps/2008C89TRSpickpage.htm

Don’t know if it’s true, but I heard or read somewhere that’s the largest contiguous vineyard in the US.

17

I think Delicato might own it.

Looks like it is the San Bernabe Vineyard, worlds biggest vineyard according to this article:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3488/is_1_82/ai_70204184/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

18

Is that how you got the triplets? [shock.gif]

19

Yeah that’s the one. We measured it at 6+ miles long along the freeway and the width would bring it to around 20 square miles or so.