Mary Panttaja

(No, not bets, nor funds.)

We were riding north on highway 128 early one morning last week (a small meandering road that runs north on the west side of the Alexander Valley), when we came around a corner to see a mysterious mechanical monster. It was rounding the end of a long row of vines, heading back into a vineyard. About 12 feet tall, the driver sitting on top, it had long sides and and undercarriage about 5 feet up off the ground. Between the sides hung two panels evenly dividing the deep space under the machine, like a gigantic 4-toothed comb. The result of driving this contraption through the vineyards is that the vines are all precisely 5 feet tall and about 12 inches wide. The grapes nestled close to the main trunk are exposed to the sun and air–supposedly good for the ripening fruit.

I’ve always wondered how they got the vines to look like that—was it some amazingly constraining gene pool that made some vineyards grow so to be so tidy? No, it turns out to be a very large hedging machine that wields its grooming power on early July mornings in the valley.

On another note, we are about to head out on a meander, part work, part vacation, part vocation. I’ll keep you posted but we’ll likely be moving July 24 through August 15.