Dover Canyon Winery

Yellow Jackets and the Sting Pain Index

Yellow jackets are a common pest during harvest. They swarm thickly over the bins of arriving fruit, and explore odd crevices in the winery equipment.

Spring through summer, yellow jackets (a species of wasp, not a bee) bring insects, meat and fish to feed larvae in their rapidly growing colony. The larvae in turn give off a sweet nectar that fuels and satisfies the adults. By late summer or early September, the larvae are all grown and the result is about 5,000 hungry adults. Without the larval love juice, an occasional flower nectar or sip of tree sap is no longer enough to fuel their full-flight metabolisms. They are looking for meat and sugar, which is why they are common pests at summer’s end picnics.

Yellow jackets are considered beneficial insects for most of the growing season because they prey on soft-bellied beetles, whiteflies, aphids, and other insects that can plague vineyards.  However, it's estimated that 1% of humans are allergic to yellow jacket venom, and yellow jackets can sting more than once, so exercise caution when visiting wineries during harvest.  Eradicating nests does not solve the problem as yellow jackets can travel a mile or more in search of food sources.  Sometimes they swarm over half tons bins of ripe fruit while the fruit is on the trailer in the vineyard, and they will latch on and ride all the way to winery.

Slow movements prevent annoying and frightening the swarming jacks, and the occasional well-aimed flick gets rid of the most curious. This season, however, the wasps seem to be arriving earlier, and they are voracious and insistent. Today one landed on the bridge of my sunglasses, while both hands were busy, natch. We’ve seen swollen lips, ears, faces, and fingers from the angry stings of yellow jackets. Once, a jack was hiding inside the handle of the crushpad pallet-jack and when I squeezed the handle to pump it up I got stung. They also hide under the lever of the hose sprayer, under tank handles, and under the forklift pedals.

On the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, a yellow jacket sting is a respectable 2.0:  "Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. ImagineW. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue. "

Quick Bright Things

"Momentary as a sound, swift as a shadow, short as any dream; brief as the lightning in the collied night . . . so quick bright things come to confusion."

Shakespeare was referring to love . . . but as many of our readers know, we are a certified wildlife habitat, and we can now add to our list of cohabiting critters the long-tailed weasel—a spritely rodent hunter with dramatic markings—swift as a shadow, hunting by sound and scent, quick and bright. A band of weasels (which is rare as they are solitary creatures, always hunting) is called a "confusion."

Dan and I were shuffling around in the tasting room early on Saturday morning of Wine Festival, gearing up for the crowds, when he looked outside and said, "Hey, look! It’s a mongoose!" I disagreed . . . the mongoose lives only in India. I thought it might be a ferret, but my guess was also wrong—a ferret is a domesticated cross that has little chance of surviving in the wild. Today, with the cordial help of www.ferret.org, I learned that our visitor is a long-tailed weasel, and a surprisingly striking animal.    She has shiny chestnut fur, a black brush at the end of her tail, a black and white mask and a bright white blaze on her head.  Our pretty weasel ran across the picnic area toward us, and bounced around the flower tubs outside the French doors, completely ignoring the curious humans and dog on the other side of the glass. Finding no food, she bounded away toward the lavender and rosemary bank along the driveway, and slid like a squid into a gopher hole.

This is whelping season for weasels, so there may be a litter of kits in the rosemary bank.

Turkeys and Walnuts

Earlier this week I was driving north on Vineyard Drive and I noticed trucks parked haphazardly in the dirt off the side of the road. Large gondolas were also parked parallel to the road under the trees. Grape harvest? No. It’s time for the annual Paso Robles nut harvest. Visitors to our tasting room have probably already tasted Paso Pistachios, organically grown, roasted and hand-packaged by Denny Colbert. Denny’s nuts have a faintly roasted flavor and a delicious coarse salt crust that doesn’t overwhelm the nut flavors. Denny is also a grape grower, committed to growing carmenere. Our first vintage of carmenere is quietly sleeping in French oak in the creekside wine barn.

This week, the almond and walnut growers are harvesting. At right, a mechanical shaker throttles an English walnut tree in our Dover Canyon orchard. The tractor arms grip the tree and shake it hard. A thundering rain of golden leaves and walnuts falls to the ground. Pickers will come through in a few days and gather the nuts into bags, the bags will be hefted into a small gondola pulled behind a tractor, and then the farm-size gondolas will be emptied into the huge highway-size gondolas parked throughout the region by Diamond and other walnut processors.

In the meantime, flocks of turkeys calmly peruse our lawn and orchard, searching for grubs and tidbits of walnut meat. Friday morning was warm and balmy and I followed this flock around the yard in the early morning hours. As you can see, their coloring blends easily with the earth and trees around them. If you are driving along Vineyard Drive you will often see a flock of turkeys strolling across the bare grey earth of a nut or olive grove, or grazing alongside a herd of deer in a pasture of tall grass. I think this flock was mostly young drakes . . . I didn’t see many hens or full plumage males.

Two weeks ago, I was walking through the zinfandel vineyard, and I startled a flock, or perhaps two, in the vineyard.

A Bird in the Hand . . .

Every spring the walnut trees and rosebushes on the property host a new generation of birds. From tiny titmouse to predatory owls and redtail hawks, the trees are alive with the hustle and song of parents attending to their hungry nestlings.

We sometimes find baby birds in the most surprising places. Last spring I was deadheading a lush climbing rose and I spotted an empty nest deep in the thick thorny shrubbery. As my hand froze in midair I realized that there were five baby birds sitting motionless on twigs all around my hair. Naturally I backed out and left the deadheading for another day.

Last year my father made us a great birdhouse, but I never put it up, preferring to keep it near my work table in the greenhouse. My greenhouse is more than a place to start seedlings—I often read or work in my cozy saltbox greenhouse, particularly on rainy days when I can watch the ocean storms approaching. At summer’s end I noticed a thick layer of birdseed shells inside the birdhouse, so I assumed that a family of mice had moved in. I pried the roof open, and found soft nesting material, seeds, colorful threads, and one tiny bird egg.

Turkey Days

When the walnuts begin to fall, wild turkeys are frequent visitors, walking calmly around the house and winery looking for nutmeats and other treats.

They are slow to lift off from the ground but very alert. As they stroll across the property it is clear that the males are keeping a sharp eye out. We often see herds of deer and flocks of turkeys grazing together in serene companionship. Turkeys warble to each other in a gurgling language much more complex than the trite "gobble" they are credited with.