Vittorio's Vineyard
California’s Winter Wonderland is quite different and very unique. Instead of ice and snow, our Wine Country displays a vivid color contrast of bright, canary yellow mustard flowers set against a mantle of green winter grasses.
The good monks who accompanied the Spanish expeditionary forces into the New World, brought not only the European grape vine but mustard, which through the centuries, was mixed with unfermented grape juice for culinary purposes and, more importantly, for medical elixirs – a monastic pharmaceutical specialty.
V. Sattui Winery
Today, it grows mostly wild in the vineyards or it can be intentionally sown as a cover crop that dries out soil allowing work in the vineyards to begin earlier in the spring and to provide good soil aeration throughout the season. Also, mustard is a member of the Brassica Family (broccoli, kale, chicory, Brussel sprouts, collard greens, etc.) which nematodes and some other vineyard parasites would like to avoid. One could say that it is one of Nature’s very effective pesticides.
