Alastair Bland
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In the Drink
Looking beyond grapes, hops, and apples to what fills the glass Among the grapevines of Preston Vineyards, Mother Nature rules. The Dry Creek Valley property is owned and managed by Lou and Susan Preston, longtime organic farmers who were recently certified biodynamic. Meeting the criteria for such purity standards in viniculture means following strict guidelines…
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Kelp!
Ocean Rich Seaweed is a regenerative super food that can help heal the earth. All we have to do is to eat it. The Pacific Ocean heaves forward one breath at a time until the tide is high, then slowly sinks again. As the water recedes, people follow as they’ve been doing in California for over…
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Growing Together
Late in September, on a hilly, sun-baked property at the foot of Sonoma Mountain, Vince and Jenny Trotter spent three days in the heat hand-shelling late summer beans, grown on a quarter acre patch of row crops surrounded by premium wine grapes. While workers in nearby vineyards harvested small fortunes’ worth of fruit, the Trotters…
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Bring on the Funk
Fresh brewing methods make sour beer the new old thing. Until the recent craft beer revolution, the beer flavor profile has consisted primarily of malt, hops, yeast, and alcohol. It’s a range of elements that makes for wonderfully diverse flavor profiles. But in the last few years, a new component in the beer taster’s expected…
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Sinking In
How flooding the Russian River might be our best chance to beat the drought. This is today: Groundwater reserves are shrinking. Wells have dried up. Saltwater is encroaching into the Carneros Valley. Tributary streams where salmon and steelhead spawn have vanished, and state efforts to stabilize groundwater use are moving at a glacial pace. Then,…
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Rabbit Redux
A European ancestral staple, rabbit meat is on the comeback—unless it rains. In 2013, a disease outbreak ravaged the North Bay, and when the dust had settled, Eric Shevchenko’s small farm was in ruins. He had just 40 rabbits left. But the farmer has recovered and rebuilt his colony. Shevchenko has also moved from his…
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Beyond the Hop
Brian Hunt and the thirst for something different. Grain-based beer has been brewed for thousands of years, while hops have been in use only for several centuries. So, for brewer Brian Hunt, our culture’s fixation on the aromatic European flower Humulus lupulus ranges from amusing to annoying. The owner and operator of Moonlight Brewing Company,…
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Ground:Level
How carbon farming might be the Earth’s last best chance. Since the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, when the tilling and disruption of soil became a signature mark of human civilization, carbon has been billowing into the Earth’s atmosphere. While a key component of all life, this lightweight element has also become Public…
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Hive Mind
Natural apiarist Michael Thiele speaks for the bees. Michael Thiele stands at the top of a ladder propped against a pine tree, peering cautiously into a small hole in a barrel-shaped capsule that is propped in the branches and covered with tree bark. “Hello,” he says softly. “Good morning.” A beady-eyed fuzzy face appears in…
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Taste of Place
How naked, cultureless wine is remaking Sonoma County viticulture. Way back in the 1980s, Ted Lemon worked the vineyards in Burgundy, the French heart and home of Pinot Noir. When he returned to the United States and settled among the apple orchards of western Sonoma County, it was never his intention to emulate the French.…