From the Fields - Stuart Mast

By Stuart Mast, Calaveras County winegrape grower and winemaker

I grow 7 acres of Bordeaux grapes. My vineyard is at 3,300 feet. I planted the vineyard 31 years ago, and it has done well for me. We have a tasting room on the property that’s open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Fortunately, there’s a lot of vacation homes where I live, so the bulk of our sales is going to folks that are visiting their cabins for the weekend. During the summer months, we do a lot of agritourism. We had 10 concerts this past summer. We had four weddings, and we also do a run of Shakespeare, although this was the final season after 10 years.

I had a little above average harvest, and average in the foothills is about 5 tons per acre. We had between 6 and 7 tons per acre. Our harvest was at least two weeks earlier than normal. I attribute that to the warm summer. The quality of the fruit looks good.

We’re not certified organic, but our vines are. We’ve always treated them as organic, and we have very few pest problems at this elevation. The biggest problem is powdery mildew, so every two or three weeks we put sulfur on the vines.

All our red grapes are crushed on the property. There is a glut of fruit and wine out there. Some of the folks I’ve historically sold grapes to can’t take any this year, and it looks like maybe next year as well.

We’ve had well over 150 interns over the last 10 years, and they’re through a program called WWOOF, which is Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. It’s mostly recent college graduates. They sign up to visit different farms. No money is supposed to change hands. We provide room and board, and we usually have two or three here at any one time between May and October. They love learning about how to make wine and are a big help to us.