Vino In My Dino

Canyon Creek Rising

December 11, 2014 12:30

This day will truly go down in the books as an answer to the many prayers for rain. 5 inches overnight. And a few more inches today. While the drought is nowhere near over, this is a good healthy addition to our annual rainfall. Canyon Creek begins just north of us and runs through our Home Ranch as well as our East Side Vineyards, a mile west on Dry Creek Road. Part of it goes underground beneath the fermentation buildings, crush pad and bottling warehouse. Sometimes when we have this type of deluge it runs over. Today was one of those days—it flowed through our yard and partly into our cellar and warehouse. It even ran over Walling Road. The crew had their hands full cleaning up and trying to stay ahead of the storm. In the photo below, taken in the 1950’s, my uncle John is standing in the yard just outside of our cellar. As you can see, Canyon Creek spilled over then, the same as it has in every large storm. We’ll keep an eye on our hillside vineyards-sometimes they’ll slip with this much rain. Overall this is the relief that we were looking for-just all at one time. Grab your glass and toast the bounty of rain and 87 years of weathering storms.

While we didn't see this much water through here today, Canyon Creek is known to crest pretty high. John Pedroncelli, circa 1950s.

John in flood