Orchard Update: July 2

As orchardists, summer provides us a bit of pause. The effort put in during spring begins to pay itself back as the system surges with warm season vitality. Fruit is sizing and beginning to show color. The young trees we planted this spring are vigorously putting on new growth and our older dry-farmed trees (watered only with rain) are looking especially verdant from the moist winter, sporting canopies of shinny emerald leaves. We're also excited to welcome the newest addition to the orchard, a grey fox (see below) who showed up this week. We welcome her trickster presence and appetite for gophers!        

Growing fruit in the Green Valley Appellation is dynamic. Warm summer days are punctuated with cool nights, which often include a 30 degree change in temperature and a kiss of fog. This dramatic diurnal flux (fun vocab term!) is characteristic of western Sonoma County and produces truly world-class apples. The warm (but not too warm) days allow the fruit to ripen slowly but fully, while the cool nights slow sugar production to maintain a beautiful balance of acidity at harvest. No apple embodies this more elegantly than the Gravenstein, our local heritage apple which we showcase in our Gravitude cider. Gravenstein harvest is just around the corner, kicking off in August!