Napa Valley wineries find sheep are not only photogenic proxies for herbicide and diesel fuel – they’re tastier, too. It’s early January, and the race is on at Sonoma Raceway. It’s lambing season, a hectic time of year for Don Watson, proprietor of Rocky Mountain Wooly Weeders. A shepherd has to keep an eye out for ewes in labor, and sometimes, to quite literally lend them a hand. Based on the raceway’s grassy slopes, Watson’s flock is also contracted out to munch down grass and weeds for local vineyards. Wineries wishing to maintain their organic certification, for example, are prohibited from spraying conventional herbicides like Roundup. And when rain keeps the ground mushy through March and April, the technology of the sheep, so to speak, may even best the tractor. “You’re way ahead of the game when frost comes,” affirms biodynamic winegrower Robert Sinskey. If not kept down, the cover crop so important to his farming method would grow too high during the critical budbreak season, pushing freezing air into the vines as it rolls down the Carneros hills. Robert Sinskey Vineyards maintains a flock of some twenty ewes. That’s not big, but it’s better than just a photo opportunity. “While our flock does graze in the vineyards, it’s way too small for our 185 acres,” acknowledges RSV farmer Debby Zygielbaum. “So we rent a much larger flock of sheep in the winter from a local shepherd.” The sheep are moved around the vineyard within electrically fenced enclosures, so it gets a nice, even trim. The home flock has another role. Or two. They’re a mishmash of wool breeds, for one, so the winery’s gift shop offers ready-to-go knitting kits with needles, patterns, and balls of home-grown yarn. Also for sale – lest Image by James Knight: Watson’s Rocky Mountain Wooly Weeders at Artesa Vineyards INK one doubt Sinskey’s ovine operation is the real deal – lamb pelts. “It’s a nice, warm place to land your feet in the morning,” says Robert. His wife, Maria Helm Sinskey, is the winery’s chef, after all. Last year, they sent thirty-five lambs to slaughter; a facility in Petaluma does the necessary work, and Browns Valley Market dresses them for use in winemaker dinners. For a short time last year, shoppers could also pick up vineyard lamb at the butcher counter of Napa’s Fatted Calf. Alas, there’s no cheese pairing from Watson’s flock of East Friesians, although the breed is suited to milk production. “Our lambs grow on their mothers’ milk,” Watson explains. His milk-fed Napa Valley Lamb Company lambs are sold in Napa Valley and San Francisco. In the hills above St. Helena, the sprawling Somerston Wine Co. project incorporates a produce farm, vineyard, state-of-the-art winery, and 1,500 sheep that roam 1,600 acres, guided by a Peruvian shepherd. These Dorpers aren’t very wooly, and don’t need to be shorn, “but they taste great,” says winemaker Craig Becker, who’s partial to Somerston’s house recipe lamb sliders. Ah, the poor little lambs, do they not seem to smile back at us as they frolic among the vines, in the innocence of spring? If it sometimes disconcerts us to casually speak of these creatures as cuisine, from the safety of the blunt end of the fork, it should. But if we choose to kick the artificial high that chemical agriculture provides, we do have to come back down to the earth – a kind of farming that’s as real as the chop on your plate. “We have always tried to close the loop in everything we do,” says Robert Sinskey. “We want everything to have a dual purpose; everything should come back to completing the cycle of a culinary experience of wine.” To wit, his flock will soon spend the off-season grazing beneath the oaks of a truffle orchard. Vintage lamb By James Knight Images: Robert Sinskey Vineyards Lamb Vindaloo served with Robert Sinskey Vineyards Merlot 3
NVLife_MayJune_2013
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