Harvesting the Hundred-Year-Old Grape Vines Beside Highway 101

A little Bay Area travel blog about wine and food, as a treat.

Last week, I helped the producer of one of my favorite wines harvest grapes from a century-old vineyard.

I was back in the Bay Area for a wedding—the second this summer, it’s that season of my life—and afterward spent a couple of days with my mom. She lives in Morgan Hill now, about fifteen minutes south of where I grew up in San Jose and just north of Gilroy, the Garlic Capital of the World. It’s where the suburban sprawl of Silicon Valley gives way to ranches and orchards, a place defined by the cities around it.

One afternoon, my mom drove us down to the small beach where we often go for a seaside walk. We were passing through Watsonville¹, which I realized is also home to Florèz Wines. Their “Kind of Orange,” a skin-contact viognier, is one of the bottles I always keep on hand: bold enough to hold up to spicy food but fleet of foot enough to be enjoyed on its own. Oddly, I’ve never tried any of their other wines; my go-to shop only stocks the one.

On a whim I checked the Florèz Wines Instagram account. A few hours earlier, the owner had posted a call for people to help him pick grapes, compensated with either money or wine. The job would be in San Martín, an eight-minute drive from my mom’s house. Why not? I sent him a message and got the green light to swing by. The next morning my mom dropped me off at the vineyard².

The person who lives closest to a place is always the last to show up. In accordance with this cardinal rule, by the time I arrived James, the owner, and his improvised crew of eight had already started. (They carpooled from Santa Cruz, about 45 minutes away, whereas I practically rolled out of bed.) I grabbed a plastic bin and a pair of shears and started picking.

“Vineyard” might be generous: it’s just over half an acre. When the vines were planted circa 1920, the plot was much larger. But then Highway 101 was built and (I assume) the power of eminent domain cut it down to its current size. (Yes, these vielles vignes predate 101!) Today, these hundred year old vines are being tended to by the descendants of the Italian immigrant who came to California four generations ago.

They carry an old-school mix of grapes—Zinfandel, Mourvèdre, Carignan, Alicante Bouschet, Petite Sirah, Black Muscat—all farmed organically, long before the term existed. As we moved from vine to vine, we didn’t separate the grape varieties. This was going into a field blend, an old-school style where you take all the grapes in a vineyard and put them into a bottle without adhering to specific ratios or formulae. (Of course, James can identify each grape on sight.)

With ten people working a half-acre of land, we made short work of the job, clearing the vineyard in two and a half hours. It was still morning when the last grape was separated from its vine.

It’s quite easy to harvest grapes: you pluck off a bunch and drop it into a tub, even the ones that the birds already got to. (James believes it makes the wine better.) The only thing to watch for is sour rot. It’s not terribly taxing on the body, at least for a couple hours, but it is labor, not leisure. Unless the vines are trellised, you have to get pretty low to the ground and reach deep inside to find all the grapes hiding within. And city slickers like me aren’t used to sharing space with the ants and beetles and bees that were crawling and flying around. But I got used to it pretty quickly.

Throughout the morning I got to talking with James and he told me some of his story. Born in Santa Cruz and raised in Davis (where I went to college), he took a gap year working on a vineyard in Burgundy. That’s how he got hooked, and after a couple years studying biology he realized that he’d rather spend his time making wine. So James dropped out, worked at a bunch of wineries around the world, studied at UC Davis’s viticulture program, and in 2017 he launched Florèz Wines. I told him a far less interesting story: my first encounter with his wine a couple years ago. It was at a Ha’s Dac Biet pop-up hosted at GEM Wine, and the server suggested the “Kind of Orange” would pair well with the food.

The vendange complete, I wandered the property and took inventory of the farm animals (two friendly goats, a pony, four unfriendly dogs) until my mom came to pick me up. I told James that wine would be sufficient compensation. He handed me two bottles: a Pinot Noir from Sonoma called “Cave Dew” and “Free Solo,” last year’s vintage from the very vineyard we were standing in. Those grapes were underripe at harvest, producing a lighter wine at a mere 11.5% ABV; he suggested serving it chilled. This year’s fruit, picked at peak ripeness, should turn out more robust. I’m excited to buy a case. Not many people can say they’re drinking a wine they helped make just because they happened to open Instagram at the right time and in the right place.

Because my earnings were freshly bottled, I was told to wait a couple months before opening. That lines up with my birthday, so I know what I’ll be drinking then. And I know what I’ll be drinking on the birthday after that.

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My Bay Area Eating Essentials

Four things that I always eat when I’m back in the Bay: In n Out, a California burrito, something Viet, and fresh fruit.

When I hit up my friends to get a meal together and they ask me where I want to go, I always turn the question back around. I don't live in the Bay, haven’t for over a decade, and don’t stay in touch with the food scene. The upstart restaurants I went to a few years ago, like Liholiho Yacht Club, have since settled in as essential establishments. Other places on my list close before I even get to visit.

The eating highlights from the summer’s two Bay Area trips are almost too numerous to recount, thanks to great recommendations from the locals. For space reasons, I didn’t even include the many delicious meals that my friends cooked.

When my mom picked me up from the airport she greeted me with grilled steak bánh mì from popular South Bay chain Duc Huong. There is good Viet food in New York, but it’s not nearly as ubiquitous as in San Jose.

We drove down to Monterey, where one of her friends made us bún bò huế, showing us every step of the process. My mom wrote down the recipe but her handwriting is impossible to decipher so she is going to type it up for me.

Had the most beautiful afternoon at Bar Turtle, a food and wine pop-up hosted by a group of friends/roommates in the Sunset. Olga told me about this event, and I made it the “everyone come and show up here” gathering of my trip. College friends and New York friends alike came through. After scarfing down a delightful lamb shawarma and fatteh, we lounged in the backyard, sipping on natural wine as the weather alternated from cloudy to sunny every ten minutes. The vibes were so immaculate I almost thought that it wouldn’t be that bad if I moved to SF. Then my senses returned.

Brunch at Copra in Japantown. Indian cuisine highlighted the coastal region of Kerala. The vibe is upscale yet the flavors are unapologetic, the SF counterpart to Semma. There’s even a giant dosa. Thankfully, the brunch menu still includes a lot of their normal fare.

Cocktails at Stoa in Lower Haight. The program keeps it simple, five ingredients max, not doing any crazy infusions or acid adjustments. The intent is to show off the spirits and liqueurs, and they are successful.

Supreme croissants from Ariscault Bakery in Mission Bay. After 9:30 AM the lines will become unbearably long, but since I was still operating on East Coast time I got there early and only had to wait five minutes.

Had the most amazing baked goods from Year of the Snake, an Asian-influenced bakery in Berkeley that pops up every Sunday at Morell’s Bread. Jonathan and I decided to full send and get one of everything. Terrific decision. It’s hard to choose a highlight: the egg tart, salted egg yolk cookie, roasted corn onigiri, really it was all great.

I was sent back to New York with a bunch of delicious fruit: strawberries my mom picked herself, giant mangoes, and passionfruits from my dad’s tree. I don’t think I ate an actual passionfruit until now and oh my god it’s amazing?? Sadly I had to split the loot with my brother. Even more than my parents, this is what I miss the most when I’m away from California.

1. You may not have heard of Watsonville, but you probably know Driscoll’s and Martinelli’s, both of which are headquartered in this NorCal agricultural center. Nestled between the beach destinations of Santa Cruz and Monterey, like Morgan Hill, this city is mostly defined by the places next to it.

2. I don’t have car insurance and haven’t touched a steering wheel since 2018, largely at her insistence.