There's Mt. St. Helena in the distance, looking NW from Villa Ragazzi.  In spite of its suggestive blown top, it is not an extinct volcano.  If you want to know more, check out the vintners' Napa Rocks program on youtube.

The vineyard crew showed up this week to lay out a small new block at the home ranch soon to be planted to Rodeno clone Sangiovese.  They used a laser instead of a surveyor's transit, very cool.  Before they could mark the vine rows they had to move dozens of large rocks unearthed by ripping, hence the (temporary) piles of rocks.  If you look closely you can see the white plastic knives (center vertical line to the right of the biggest rockpile, marked by red arrows), each representing the spot where a new vine will be planted.  But first, those rockpiles have to go somewhere else.  Free rocks, anyone?

Villa Ragazzi is doing its best to keep employment high here in the Napa Valley.  Look at the rocks that surfaced during ripping!  Many are scarred by the disk that smoothed the ripped field -- the larger ones weigh 50 lbs or more -- so, rather than risk damage to the farm equipment during cultivation, a crew will soon come in to remove these rocks by hand.  I don't think we'll have enough for a handsome stone wall, but I can hope.  I'll keep you posted as our little vineyard development project progresses.