Gentlemen Farmers

When we purchased the ten-acre walnut farm that now bears the sign "Dover Canyon Winery," we were living across the street in a rented farmhouse. We lived there for six years, while Dan was the winemaker at Eberle and I was the business manager at Justin Winery, and we lived there during the first few years that we produced Dover Canyon wines in a leased barn on Bethel Road.

We were looking for a place of our own, and we were looking for ten acres, preferably on the calcareous strip that follows Vineyard Drive in west Paso Robles. We had always adored the blue farmhouse with white gingerbread trim and pretty orchard across the street, so we were delighted to learn that the owner, Jack Harrington, was willing to sell to us. We moved into the farmhouse and began planting the vineyard, but made no other changes the first year other than cleaning up some farm debris and applying for operational permits. We decided to convert a little Dunn barn into a small wine production facility with a crush pad, and to open to the public only a few days each week. Although Dan and I had both been pampered and appreciated employees, we felt awkward in the limelight. Here there would be no concerts, no winemaker dinners, no bed and breakfast. Dan would no longer have to suffer a tuxedo and public speaking, I would no longer have to sweat the social nuances of seating charts at winemaker dinners. We wanted to escape the tango of travel, the salsa of sales—we wanted to waltz toward our goals, to glide through our days alive to the colors and music of our vineyard, wines, and gardens.

We met our neighbors when we posted the required notice soliciting public comments on our plans.

To the west, the Barloggio family farms nearly 1,000 acres of barley, safflower, peas, and pastured livestock. Dusk brings the sound of cowbells from the ridge across the road from our farmhouse, as cows climb the hill toward their salt blocks and water. To the east, Antillio Busi, with his battered hat and toothless smile, farms 800 acres of wheat and makes his own oak and walnut charcoal in a deep pit. When we moved onto the property, both Antillio and Dave Barloggio stopped by with a six pack of beer to welcome us and check us out while kicking the tractor tires and explaining the finer points of starting a pony motor on a D4 tractor. Antillio offered us charcoal, and Dave invited us to hop the fence across the road any time and harvest as many snow peas in season as we like.

Our neighbor to the north is a lawyer, a gentleman farmer who spends ten weekends a year in a graceless house on his 30 acre property, which Antillio leases and farms. During his absences his burglar alarm, a horrid klaxon bell which can be heard for miles, is frequently triggered at 2 a.m. In our rural location it takes the security firm at least half an hour to physically respond, leaving us with hypertension, heart palpitations and neurotic pets. His complaint to the county was the possibility of noise generated by winery activities.

Our neighbor to the southeast is retired from the CIA, a gentleman farmer with twenty acres of walnut orchard adjacent to, and contiguous with, our orchard. There are no fences as it was once all one ranch. They have a large, leggy red dog penned up in a kennel near their house. When Red escapes, he heads straight for our farmhouse and our springer spaniel, Rebel Rose. The first time Red escaped, he spent two nights camped out in our sunporch. Aside from the nuisance of keeping Rebel inside so as to prevent a litter of hybrid Rose Reds, the spring seedlings in my raised beds were dug up and destroyed, and I found a throw blanket and my Uggs chewed to pieces on the lawn. Their complaint to the county was that the winery would create a fly pest problem.

At the county meeting, Dan, whose nature is cheerfully monosyllabic except with friends, surprised me by speaking eloquently and dispassionately about our plans, which were approved with no further discussion. Nevertheless, we were annoyed.

After another sleep-deprived night during which we got up and made cocoa while waiting for the security firm to turn off del Norte’s burglar alarm, we decided to get even the next time he was in residence. Unfortunately, we had just had our crusher customized and new ball bearings installed, so it ran smoothly and quietly, and the press makes less noise than our cars. As we were scratching our heads in frustrated creativity, Dan’s hyperactive, car crazy nine-year-old son came careening around the corner, running in one direction while shouting over his shoulder in another and crashing into everything in his path. A few minutes later, we had strapped Troy’s bicycle helmet onto his head, taped the gearshift on the riding lawnmower so it could only operate in second gear, and set him to work mowing the grassy cover crop between the vineyard rows. Even over the low roar of the motor, we could hear him singing "Yippy ki yi yay," and howling like a coyote. It kept him entertained for hours every day. And he did a good job.

I continued to stew over Patron Sudeste. His wife patrolled the boundary between our properties on her ATV, pounding steel markers into the ground. Our walnut manager, Robert Frank, has farmed the surrounding contiguous walnut farms for years. He traverses slippery 45 degree slopes in heavy equipment and can turn a Caterpillar D4 on a dime. "Whoops," he said, "ran over that damn marker again."

Having announced our intent to operate a winery, however small and conscientious, our every action was on offer to an altar of scrutiny.  Ironically, we could have decided to raise livestock like our other neighbors, including a family with an overachieving rooster that crows every morning at 4 am., and no one would have had the right to protest. We wanted a small winery and vineyard, with no irrigation, dryfarmed, cover cropped, no crop rotation, no litter from farm crews, little tractor noise, and no dust, but all this guy with parameter paranoia could see is the potential for flies.

So I designed a pigpen for the southeast corner of our property. Which is, coincidentally, just upwind of our neighbors.

I wanted an 8’x8’ wooden stable, 5’ high, painted sky blue with white trim, to match the house and barn. Windows and a small Dutch door would be screened to provide ventilation in summer but still keep the bobcats out. The cement floor would have heating coils to keep my pigs warm in winter, and the back wall would have nesting shelves and roosting ladders for a few chickens and ducks to keep the pigs company. The attached pen with its whitewashed fence would be kept well padded with fresh wood shavings and straw, and a large tub filled with clean sand would be the repository for buried treats, as pigs love to root. My plan was to buy a litter of cute miniature potbellied pigs in midsummer. Two weeks after their arrival I would order a ton of well-rotted, very ripe full-size pig manure, to be delivered and placed next to the pigpen as if my little piggies had produced it all.

After a few days of rotting manure and Buick-sized flies floating downwind, I planned to liquefy the manure and spray it on the vineyard, enriching the soil, fertilizing the vines, delighting earthworms and pretty much napalming del Sudeste.

I went to the farmer’s market in search of piglets and took my nine-year-old stepson with me. I discovered, as I held a darling black-and-white piglet in my arms, that potbellied pigs are highly intelligent and sensitive and that shrieking, yelling and agitation can make them neurotic. Having named the pig Poppy, my stepson was now climbing all over a nearby fire truck. I once clocked him at 110 questions per hour. I studied the chubby piglet as he distractedly rooted around in my elbow, and carefully considered. Pig, kid, pig, kid. No contest. I gave the pig back.

Instead, we ordered a fifty gallon drum of fermented fish emulsion. Unfortunately, the fertilizer project literally backfired on me, which is another story for another day.

In the meantime, Red still escapes, but I just scratch him around the ears, hop on the ATV, and lead him home. Robert still runs over the markers, which are replaced with less frequency and more often with wood as a nod to their impermanence. Del Norte sold his property to a local woman who is planting fields of lavender. I still want a pigpen and someday, a pig named Poppy.

Comments

[Mike Duffy]

What a great post (and a testament to the trials of living with country neighbors)! It is a treat to read your writing. Thank you for an excellent (if infrequent) example of wine blogging!