Thursday, October 15, 2009

California Wine Country ... Harvest Vignettes

Darioush Winery ... soon to appear on Bay Area Tendrils Garden Travel

Napa Valley
Rainy season arrives ... a bit early for the grape harvest.

Opus One Winery (above and below)




Prickly Pear (Opuntia) with its colorful fall fruit.

14 comments:

  1. Hello Alice,

    I enjoyed your pictures, especially of the cloudy California sky.

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  2. Wow, that Pumpkin is huge!!!

    We are not a fan of pumpkins over here in the UK, and generally you're lucky if you get one much over 30cm! ha ha ha. No, they're not very good for carving...

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  3. I count my lucky stars each time I take the short drive over to Napa, Sonoma, the City or the beach.
    We really live in a wonderfully centrally located place with so many wonderful things to experience.

    Thanks for the tour.
    Michelle

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  4. Hi Alice - great pictures of all the wineries - do you go on a wine tasting tour at this time of year?
    I also live in a great wine making area, too bad I quit drinking!
    Thanks for visiting Blue Fox Garden, and Drought Smart Plants, which by the way has grown exponentially in the past few days - you'll be impressed when you visit again!

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  5. Hi Alice,

    I love the landscape with the mountains in the background ... Napa Valley ... beautiful! The Prickly Pear is quiet something too. Carol

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  6. Loved the tour of the wine country. So many beautiful shots and moods of autumn.

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  7. Very nice digs to visit! I am particularly fond of the white grass. It is quite striking. Can you tell me what it is?

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  8. Alice girl ! I some how never pictured a pumpkin in that area for some reason .. just wine from the vineyards ? LOL .. and that was a whopper of a pumpkin !
    I so wished that I had the advantage of a digital camera when we lived in Holland .. we traveled and saw so many beautiful sites and the sad thing is I have very few pictures .. certainly not the great digital ones you can have now.
    Nor during the time we lived on Vancouver Island .. drats !! haha
    You have a wonderful blog here girl !
    Joy : )

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  9. The scenery here is very beautiful. I like the flowering prickly pear cactus.

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  10. Good morning Alice,
    Great pictures. I like how white and 'clean' the plume on the grass (is it a Pampas in a container?) so pretty. How clever to use the big pumpkin as an entry decoration.

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  11. Oh fab! That is diffenatley something I need to do in my lifetime - visit some vineyards. Funnily enough we don't have any in N. Ireland. God I love wine, uummmmmmmm. Great photos xx
    Thanks again for the e-mail.

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  12. Oh, love that prickly pear plant and the huge pumpkin! What great photos for this time of year.

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  13. Hello all,

    Michele, I feel exactly the same way about living here. I wake up every day and feel awed by the area's beauty.

    To my U.K. friends, there are pumpkins weighing in at 1000 pounds, if you can believe it! It's a gardening 'niche' that surfaces as this time of year in U.S. contests - one-ton pumpkins appearing on the nightly news!

    LeSan, the grass is Pampas Grass - you'll see more of it when DARIOUSH is featured soon on Bay Area Tendrils.

    The sun is shining today. The landscape will have a chance to dry out a bit. Cheers! Alice

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  14. Ah, now I see what's going on with the Opuntia. I love the way that certain fruits are as decorative as flowers.

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