Though just into his 30s, the new vineyard master for Quintessa has been at home among the vines from an early age and has a winegrowing resume that includes notable California coastal properties.
From 2 weeks old to age 20, Caleb Mosley lived on a Santa Cruz Mountains vineyard property his father developed. Later, he worked in the winery that was built there.
"I had to do punchdown on the cap [of grape skins on the wine in the tank] before school, and I would try to get wine stains on my shirt so I'd have something to talk about," Mr. Mosley said.
His father didn't push him to stay in the business when he wanted to follow his talent for baseball into a career. But he fell in love with viticulture while studying pomology from Keith Patterson, a longtime California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, enology and viticulture professor who died early last year.
Working two harvests at custom winery Orcutt Road Cellars during college convinced him to focus on vines instead of tanks. He got sick every couple of weeks from the cool, damp conditions while night cellar manager the second year.
In 2006 he was hired as a viticulturist for Ridge Vineyards, which has vines in the Central Coast and Sonoma County. After four years became manager for Ridge's organic-farmed Monte Bello Vineyard. In 2011 following just eight months in that role, Mr. Mosley got a call to direct the vineyards for Araujo Estate, one of Napa Valley's most prestigious vines.
Following the acquisition of Araujo last July, he looked for other options and was offered to manage the Hunneus family's Quintessa vineyards.
Mr. Mosley is set to participate on a panel at the Impact Napa Conference on Thursday of young professionals who are presenting a new face for the industry. The Journal asked him about innovations that are transforming high-end viticulture in Napa Valley.What makes you a forward-thinker in the industry?
CALEB MOSLEY: I'm part of a generation of growers who are starting to embrace technology in the vineyard as a decision-making tool. I'm not saying it has not happened in the past. High-tech measurements of a vineyard were not fully embraced until about five years ago. There are companies that have developed tools that allow us to mitigate water use to give vines enough water to meet production goals and not a drop more.
Growers in Sonoma and Napa get hammered for all those damn vineyards going in. But viticulture is one of the least water-intensive crops you can grow. We're changing irrigation strategies. It's not just to make the highest-quality wine but also for water conservation.What are some examples of these innovations?
MR. MOSLEY: I use two new technologies regularly. One is Fruition Sciences' sap-flow monitoring for vines. I use it for figuring out how much the vine is transpiring -- releasing water -- and we can also figure out how much moisture is in the soil and in the surrounding environment. We can find out if transpiration is above the level that shows the vine is feeling stress and concentrating its resources into the fruit. We're starting to learn what a vine can truly handle.
Another tool I use is the CropPulse microdendrometer, which attaches to the petiole of the leaf. It shows what looks like the heartbeat of the plant. The sensor will detect when the petiole will enlarge and contract. During the day, tension on the water column in the vine will shrink, and the petiole will shrink.
With the microdendrometer, we will see trends in how the plant handles a given day and a particular vintage. If the "heartbeat" is steady, we may not have problem. It's not about turning irrigation on and walking away but turning it on and seeing what happens.
CropPulse also has a way to monitor the weight in a cluster over a day and see the rate at which it is growing and can see it shrink during a heat spell. Vineyard mangers can show this to grape buyers and make decision on when to harvest and how much they're willing to lose on the vine.
I'm a firm believer in organic farming. Araujo farms by Biodynamic and organic methods. Some pesticides are systemic, entering the plant and remain in for a while. I don't want to walk through a vineyard come harvest time and pop those berries in my mouth. But that does not mean that commercial farmers are doing anything that's dangerous.How is mechanization affecting high-end viticulture?
MR. MOSLEY: I have not worked much with mechanical pruners, but mechanical hedgers are standard in the valley now. A talking point in Napa Valley in the next 10 to 20 years will be how we maintain meticulous farming with a labor source we're not confident will be around forever.
We're starting to see problems arising right now. We did not have as many to farm our grapes as we had hoped for at the beginning of this year. We've been using all sources of labor under sun this year. Our core group are vineyard professionals who know how to grade a road, fix fences and do trellis work. We tapped seasonal workers for suckering and shoot-thinning and are calling on contract labor during the big pushes in the vineyard.
I'm trying to champion that timing in ag is everything, and if you're not fighting Mother Nature to do things at times not supposed to you can get by with the labor you have. At this point, we still haven't had to make a sacrifice in quality because we were not able to get enough people.
We're working hard to have the people we need for times to come. The estates I can think of in the valley have a crew on site year-round, and we do too. To do that, there have been compensation increases, and that has been warranted for some time. California ag labor laws say they can work 10 hours a day for six days before overtime.
It's all about timing and realizing we're all winegrowers here. We're closing the gap that used to be more prevalent between the winemaking side and the growing side. Many have said for a long time that wine is made in the vineyard, but winemakers are starting to get that.
