Lone Wolf offered an incredibly special haven for us during the pandemic. I went out in late May 2020, after bud-break, when there would be the first vegetative growth after our pruning. I arrived, walked around, could see lots and lots of healthy growth— we had, at least, done no harm. I soon realized that a whole section that we had thought was dead had pushed lots of tiny shoots, and that it was in fact simply struggling to survive. The many tiny shoots were sapping the vines' strength and prevented strong and healthy growth. It was the only section of the vineyard that really needed our care to survive.
And so I knew that we must return and thin this section, remove most of the shoots and help bring the vines into balance.
And when we returned to care for this section, I had another realization. The unpruned section that had completely daunted us, which we called "The Wildlands"— I realized that it too could be thinned this year and pruned next year— that it was all doable— and that if we did, we could harvest fruit from it too.
So I began organizing bi-weekly shoot thinning visits, with a parade of cars driving down from LA to Temecula, and disgorging us, at the most 1 or two at a time, onto this distant Reservation vineyard.
Later that year we harvested. We brought in 1600 pounds from the untended vineyard in 2019; in 2020, after one year of pruning and months of careful shoot-thinning, nearly 9000 pounds. And finally, in the winter of 2021, we began pruning the Wildlands— the first time that it had been touched this way by human beings in 70 years.
Kaeley beginning to prune the Wildlands for the first time in Winter 2021
Nina shoot thinning in Wildlands, 2020
Nina West leading the pruning crew in February 2022, with map, teams, protocols
Team Wildlands: Ben and Darcy bringing order to southern edge of Wildlands, February 2022
Shoot-thinning the somewhat structured vines in the center
Alice of Amevive pruning in 2021
By 2021, Steve and Misuk started catering our harvests and pruning missions. It's amazing and warrants its own account. Misuk's Café
Darcy and Xena at Misuk's Café
Bianca and Raj harvesting, 2021
Our harvest truck, 2020
The Sisters Weinberger, celebrating after harvest 2021
The whole experience has been really remarkable: Lone Wolf became a kind of sacred precinct for us. It was a haven, but also a challenge and a responsibility. Harvest here meant something very different from what it has meant in the other precious historic vineyards. And the wine tastes differently too— and not necessarily better. The wines were brilliant in 2019 and 2020; and we made delicious white wine in 2022— but in other years, true excellence has escaped us.
We still prune the vineyard every year, ourselves. We now have an army of about 40 experienced, careful, pruners, scattered across several states and two continents. And we still harvest the fruit ourselves. The responsibility is ours. But as far as the wine goes: The vineyard has twists and turns; one does not make the same wine twice.