Modern Viticulture
Introduction
The materials gathered in this section were written as a collaboration between Charles Kamins, a Napa Valley wine maker and publisher and Dr. Richard Nagaoka (The Grape Doctor), a St. Helena based viticulturalist well known in all the wine growing regions of Northern California.
Some of these articles were first published in the Wine Country Weekly Real Estate Reader [1] a weekly periodical distributed in the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area. The original purpose of these articles was to provide information helpful for readers interested in developing vineyard land. Topics cover evaluation of existing vineyards as well as evaluation of undeveloped land for vineyard potential.
There is a great deal of literature available on the subject of viticulture (see #External Links below). What is unique about the articles presented here is they represent an introduction for laymen in simple language that's easy to understand and helpful for non-scientists with an aim to invest in the vineyard business or develop vineyard land as a hobby. The reader will also find the practices outlined here, in some cases, are specific to the wine growing regions north of the San Francisco Bay and reflect a uniquely "home-grown" philosophy of vineyard development.
The area north of the San Francisco Bay has been known for over a century as an ideal environment for cultivation of high-quality wine grapes. Whereas farmers have grown grapes in the area for over a century, it is only recently, since the 1960s, that a viable economic model has allowed the advanced development of a wine industry based in the New World.
