Family Secrets

My family is, at its core, a bunch of evolving traditionalists. As a kid, every night we would sit at the dinner table and have family dinner together. Still, with my sister and I being out of the house, we make it to family dinner almost once a week. We still do certain things because, “that’s the way Grandma or Grandpa did it.” But, as time goes on, we evolve. We do things different because it’s easier, less time consuming, or whatever the particular reason we find. I joke that my father has put off acceptance of every new technology since the fax machine, which I now find really comical when he’s sitting at his laptop with a smart phone in his hand. Even though time goes on and things get better and better (for the most part), one of the sad truths is that we lose some of the amazing knowledge of past generations.

I just learned from my father (who just learned from his cousin), an incredible old trick that my great grandfather Vincenzo used to implement in the vineyard...

First, let me open with this. Planting a vineyard is an extremely expensive undertaking, especially if you want to do it right. However, nothing is more devastating to your livelihood and your timeline (especially as a poor Italian immigrant trying to settle down) than the death and destruction of your baby

grape vines. Wild animals, plowing, tractors, drought, and so many other factors can be the end of young vines. In my great grandfathers’ time, before high fences, mass ruralization and plant grow tubes, it was the wild animals that could really do you in. The rabbits and the deer could literally eat you out of house and home. But, as it turns out, great grandpa Vincenzo had a trick up his sleeve.

In California we have an invasive weed called Yellow Star-Thistle. This very tricky and prolific weed was accidently brought in from the Mediterranean Basin in the 1800’s and it’s yellow flower is covered in long, sharp, very irritating spikes. Vincenzo discovered that if he cut the Yellow Star-Thistle and then hung it upside- down over the tops of the baby grape vines, the deer and rabbits wouldn’t eat the tips of the vines off (which can delay growth, destroy, or kill the vine) because the spikes would prick them in the nose and make them lose interest. As the vine got taller, all you had to do was move the string up the stake and the vine tips would again be protected. What I also came to find out was that my cousin Eddie was made to do this as a kid - he said it was an ingenious trick but other than that he had nothing but bad things and a few swear words to say about it because they didn’t have gloves and it was fairly labor intensive. But, it worked... worked really well actually, and was basically free. As a vintner, you do what you can to protect those little babies.

Hopefully, with all the current technology, we can better record and remember the amazing things of our past family generations so we can pass down what it took for us to get at our present.

— Alexandra Graziano