One Vintage: A Year in the Vineyard Book

In the soil of our Santa Ynez vineyard, sibling vines grow side by side. Though all are rooted in the same gravelly clay loam, some flourish, lush and green, while others seem to struggle, stunted and pale. It is a mystery.

"Viticulture is an art, like practicing medicine," says out friend Paul Hohe, a retired physician and fellow wine grape grower. He is right. At first we rely on technical knowledge, but in the end experience and intuition are our most valuable tools. Nothing is wholly predictable, but we have learned that the elements beyond our control are what make each vintage, like each life, unique.

One Vintage is about one year of farming wine grapes, from bud to harvest: about the everyday realities of working the vineyard, despite exhaustion and loss. It is about how we are healed and restored by that work and by this place, whose seasons reflect the great cycle of life.

Santa Maria Sun

Writer and viticulturist Chris Jones farms Faith Vineyard near Los Olivos, with her husband. She considers grape juice—the raw material without which winemakers cannot ply their trade—as nothing short of 'miraculous.' To honor both the magic of grape growing and the concurrent rhythms of life, she has written ONE VINTAGE: A Year in the Vineyard, a book that is part memoir and part heartfelt homage to the tenacity of farmers everywhere.