The lightning strikes that took place during the early pre-dawn hours of Sunday August 16th were a thankfully rare event, as there was little to no rain in many areas and therefore a very high chance of fires due to strikes in the parched mountains.  Cal Fire was on hi...

Our Chardonnay plan for 2020 is a move toward an even more delicate and citrusy wine.  To accomplish this, we start with the cleanest possible clusters, with no damage, mold or sunburn.  We've left a little more side leaves and more canopy above for a nice shade for ab...

For years, we enjoyed having the mustard as a spring cover crop, but we never harvested it.  This year we harvested it, got the seeds and started using them in our cooking

.  All led by Claudia, the queen of "use what ya got", "grow stuff" and "let's try this..."...

 The winter is behind us and the vines got enough rain this year to get them through the growing season.  We pruned as the rains ended and now the shoots are growing and the clusters have formed.  Now's the time to go in and show some love.  The vines grow about 3x mor...

Watch out gophers!  The first of our owl boxes is now in place.  Barn owl mating season is about to begin and we wanted to make sure we rolled out the carpet for at least one prospective owl family down in the new Cabernet block where the gophers have destroyed about 5...

After a mailing to virtually everyone in my address book, we gathered up a core group of friends that want to be the "founders" of the Griffin Hill Wine Club.  This group, which will get extra-special pricing for life, will meet at the winery for our first event on Nov...

I've heard from some of you asking if the PG&E

power shutdown included Griffin Hill.  Yes, it did and yes there were some pretty high winds up here, so the way I see it, it's all good.  In fact, it came at a pretty okay time, with our coolers already shut down following...

After waiting the standard three years for our new Cabernet Sauvignon vines in our newly redone lower section, we netted the vines to save the grapes from the predators and held a harvest with friends and family last weekend.  The fruit was in great shape and many vine...

Come see us this weekend, 5/18-19 at the Rotary's 44th annual Fine Art in the Park event in Los Altos' Lincoln Park.  Rain or shine.  We'll be pouring all or our wines: 2016 Estate Chardonnay, 2016 Estate Pinot Noir, 2016 Cabernet and 2016 Santa Cruz Mountains Zinfande...

Among the activities taking place in the winery this time of year is racking.  There many reasons to rack.  The most common reasons are: natural clarification of the wine, getting the wine off the lees and gently getting more oxygen into the wine.  The first racking fo...