Why Are Grapes Different Every Year?

That question is the perfect beginning because it teaches one of the biggest truths in farming.

There is no such thing as an average year.

Every vintage is different.

Every growing season writes its own story.

Every bottle is a snapshot of a particular place, in a particular year, under a particular sky.

And no two skies are ever exactly alike.

I think that's the page that starts your legacy.

Not another reflection.

A question.

A real answer.

Written by someone who's spent nearly three decades watching vines wake up every spring.

Here's why I feel strongly about this.

People will find your Almanac because they searched:

• Why are grapes different every year?

• What is veraison?

• What is bud break?

• Why do vineyards prune vines?

• Why do grapes crack?

Those are the doors into your world.

Once they're inside, they'll discover the philosophy you've already written.

I think you've built exactly enough foundation.

Imagine someone opens an old, worn copy of The Saarloos Almanac in 2086.

They read the foreword.

They understand who you are.

Then they turn the page.

The very first thing they see is:

Entry No. 0001

Why Are Grapes Different Every Year?

That feels right.

Not because it's the first lesson about grapes.

Because it's the first lesson about farming.

Every year is different.

Every harvest is different.

Every family is different.

Every season of life is different.

In a way, that one question quietly introduces everything that follows.

I think this is the moment to stop talking about the Almanac and let the vineyard start teaching.

Excerpt No. 0016

The Rest Is Written in Dirt

If you've made it this far...

Thank you.

You've listened to me talk about the vineyard.

Now I'd rather show you.

Everything I've written in these first pages comes from the same place.

Not a classroom.

Not a boardroom.

Not the internet.

A field.

A tractor seat.

A pickup truck.

A pair of muddy boots.

And twenty-seven years of waking up before the sun because something out there needed my attention.

I didn't write these pages because I think farming has all the answers.

I wrote them because farming has taught me how to look for them.

The vineyard has a way of stripping away everything unnecessary.

It doesn't care about opinions.

It cares about results.

It doesn't reward shortcuts.

It rewards consistency.

It doesn't ask you to be perfect.

It simply asks you to come back tomorrow.

There's wisdom in that.

From this point forward, the Almanac changes.

The pages ahead won't begin with reflections.

They'll begin with questions.

Real questions.

Questions I've been asked in tasting rooms.

Questions visitors have asked while standing beside a vine.

Questions my kids asked from the passenger seat of the truck.

Questions I asked myself after a long day in the vineyard.

Some took five minutes to answer.

Others took fifteen years.

I don't expect you to agree with everything I write.

I don't even expect future Keith to agree with all of it.

The vineyard has changed my mind more than once.

I suspect it still will.

That's the beauty of an Almanac.

It's alive.

If I learn something tomorrow that makes today's entry better...

I'll come back and add another page.

Knowledge isn't finished.

Neither am I.

So this is where the foreword ends.

Not because the conversation is over.

Because it's finally time to get our hands dirty.

We'll talk about grapes.

Soils.

Weather.

History.

Wine.

Faith.

Family.

The Santa Ynez Valley.

The mistakes that cost the most.

The lessons that lasted the longest.

And the little things that most people never notice.

Those are usually the ones that matter most.

If one day someone finds this Almanac on a dusty shelf...

I hope they don't think,

"He wrote a book."

I hope they think,

"He left us a map."

A map of a vineyard.

A family.

A life.

And maybe, if I've done this right...

A better way of paying attention.

Now...

Let's go to work.

Filed Away

The first sixteen pages taught you how to read the vineyard.

The rest of the book teaches you what it has to say.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0015

Leave Better Notes

Every generation inherits something.

Sometimes it's a ranch.

Sometimes it's a mortgage.

Sometimes it's a watch.

Sometimes it's a last name.

But the most valuable things I've inherited couldn't be held in my hands.

They were conversations.

Observations.

Habits.

Stories told while fixing a fence.

Lessons shared from the passenger seat of an old pickup.

Most of them were never written down.

There are things my father taught me that I'll never forget.

Not because he sat me down for a lecture.

Because he lived them.

I watched.

I listened.

I paid attention.

That's how most knowledge has always been passed from one generation to the next.

Not in classrooms.

In fields.

In workshops.

At kitchen tables.

Side by side.

But every generation loses something.

A phrase nobody says anymore.

A trick that only Grandpa knew.

The reason a gate was built where it was.

The story behind an old oak tree.

One day, someone realizes the only person who knew the answer is no longer here to ask.

That's how knowledge disappears.

Not all at once.

One forgotten story at a time.

I've thought about that more than I'd like to admit.

Not because I'm afraid of getting older.

Because I'm afraid of forgetting something that mattered.

Something that could have helped someone fifty years from now.

A lesson that took twenty harvests to learn shouldn't have to be learned all over again.

That's why these pages exist.

Not because I think my life is extraordinary.

Because ordinary days are where the best lessons usually hide.

A note about frost.

A sentence my dad said.

A mistake I made.

A morning that changed the way I looked at a vineyard.

Those are the things worth preserving.

I hope one day my children add their own pages.

I hope they disagree with me once in a while.

I hope they discover things I never noticed.

That won't diminish this Almanac.

It will prove it's alive.

Knowledge shouldn't be frozen.

It should grow, just like a vineyard.

If you're reading this and you're not a Saarloos, I hope you do the same thing for your family.

Write things down.

Tell the stories.

Label the old photographs.

Ask your parents the questions you've been meaning to ask.

Save the recipe.

Record the joke your grandfather always told.

Don't wait until the voice is gone to wish you had listened more carefully.

Because one day, someone you haven't met yet will wonder what life was like.

What you believed.

What mattered to you.

How you solved problems.

How you loved your family.

What you learned from your work.

Leave them better notes than the ones you inherited.

Filed Away

Legacy isn't measured by what you leave behind.

It's measured by how much of yourself others can still learn from after you're gone.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0014

Learn to Notice

When I was younger, I thought experience meant knowing more.

Now I think it means seeing more.

Those aren't the same thing.

The vineyard has taught me that most of life isn't hidden.

It's simply overlooked.

The first leaf to unfurl.

A change in the smell of the soil after a light rain.

The way birds disappear before a storm.

The sound a tractor makes when something isn't quite right.

The look on someone's face before they say they're struggling.

None of those things announce themselves.

They whisper.

The world is full of whispers.

Most people are waiting for something loud enough to demand their attention.

Nature rarely works that way.

The vineyard certainly doesn't.

It teaches in small moments.

The trick is slowing down enough to catch them.

I've noticed something over the years.

The best farmers aren't always the strongest.

Or the smartest.

Or the ones with the biggest tractors.

They're usually the ones who notice first.

They notice the vine that's a little behind.

The leaf that's just a little lighter.

The weather that feels just a little different.

The cattle standing where they don't normally stand.

By the time everyone else sees the problem...

The observant farmer has already been thinking about it for days.

I think that's true outside the vineyard, too.

The best parents notice when a child gets quiet.

The best husbands notice when their wives are carrying more than they say.

The best friends notice when a laugh doesn't sound real.

The best leaders notice what everyone else walks past.

Not because they have a special gift.

Because they've trained themselves to pay attention.

That's really what this Almanac is.

Not a collection of answers.

A collection of things worth noticing.

Some of them are about grapes.

Some are about weather.

Some are about family.

Some are about faith.

All of them began the same way.

I noticed something...

...and I didn't want to forget it.

If these pages help you become a better farmer, I'll be grateful.

If they help you become a better observer of the world around you...

I think the vineyard would smile.

Because that's what it's been trying to teach all along.

So before you rush to find the next answer...

Pause.

Look around.

Listen.

The lesson you're searching for may already be standing right in front of you.

Waiting to be noticed.

Filed Away

The world changes quietly.

The people who notice first are the ones who understand it best.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0013

Write What You Saw

There are enough books written by people who never got dirt on their boots.

This won't be one of them.

Everything in these pages begins the same way.

I saw it.

I lived it.

I wondered about it.

Or I learned it from someone who had earned the right to teach it.

If I didn't...

I'll tell you.

The vineyard has made me careful.

Nature has a funny way of exposing people who pretend to know more than they do.

A vine doesn't care how confident you sound.

It only responds to what is actually true.

I've learned to respect that.

You'll notice something as you read this Almanac.

I don't write much about theories.

I write about mornings.

About pruning.

About dust.

About rain that came two days too late.

About frost that settled fifty feet lower than expected.

About cattle standing where they normally don't.

About a vine that finally made sense after watching it for ten years.

Those things happened.

Those are worth remembering.

Every farmer has opinions.

Some are good.

Some aren't.

Time has a way of sorting them out.

That's why I try not to confuse opinion with observation.

Observation is where wisdom begins.

You can argue with an opinion.

It's much harder to argue with twenty-seven harvests.

There will be pages in this Almanac where I say,

"I don't know."

There will be others where I write,

"This is what I've seen."

Those aren't weaknesses.

They're honesty.

And honesty lasts longer than certainty.

If I quote another farmer, I'll tell you.

If I learned something from my father, you'll know it.

If a scientist explained something better than I ever could, I'll point you there.

This Almanac isn't about proving that I know everything.

It's about preserving everything worth knowing.

No matter where it came from.

One day, someone may read one of these entries and discover that I was wrong.

I hope they write it in the margin.

Then I hope they explain why.

Knowledge isn't protected by pretending we're always right.

It's protected by caring enough to keep looking.

Maybe that's why I trust the vineyard so much.

It has never lied to me.

Sometimes I misunderstood it.

Sometimes I wasn't paying attention.

Sometimes I asked the wrong question.

But the vineyard was always telling the truth.

It was my job to listen better.

So that's my promise.

I won't write what sounds good.

I won't write what gets applause.

I'll write what I saw.

Because someday, someone else may need to see it too.

Filed Away

The vineyard rewards observation, not exaggeration.

Write what you saw.

Then let time decide the rest.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0012

If It's Worth Remembering, It's Worth Writing Down

Not everything belongs in the Almanac.

Some things are just interesting.

Some things are entertaining.

Some things make for a good story around the dinner table.

That's not enough.

Every page in this book has to earn its place.

I ask myself one simple question before I write anything down.

Will this still matter after I'm gone?

If the answer is no...

It probably doesn't belong here.

This isn't a diary.

I'm not keeping track of what happened on a Tuesday afternoon because it happened.

I'm keeping track of what happened because it taught me something.

There's a difference.

One records events.

The other preserves wisdom.

Some lessons come from success.

Most don't.

Some come from a perfect harvest.

Others come from watching an entire year's work disappear in a weekend.

Both deserve a page.

The vineyard doesn't care whether the lesson was expensive.

Only whether you learned it.

There will be entries in this Almanac that answer questions about grapes.

Others will answer questions about people.

Some will explain why a vine behaves the way it does.

Others will explain why a father does.

If the lesson is true...

It belongs.

I've learned that the smallest observations often become the biggest lessons.

A note scribbled in the margin.

A weather pattern.

A sentence my father said without realizing I'd remember it forever.

Those are the things that disappear first if nobody writes them down.

They're also the things that become priceless fifty years later.

If my grandchildren ever read this Almanac, I hope they don't see a man who had all the answers.

I hope they see someone who thought enough of the future to leave behind what he learned.

Maybe they'll agree with me.

Maybe they'll improve on what I've written.

I hope they do.

Because this Almanac was never meant to have the last word.

It was meant to make sure the conversation never ends.

Tomorrow we'll start talking about grapes.

But before we do...

Remember this.

You're not reading these pages because I wanted to write a book.

You're reading them because I didn't want a lifetime of lessons to disappear.

Filed Away

Knowledge becomes wisdom only when someone cares enough to pass it on.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0011

Questions Grow Better Than Answers

Every page that follows began the same way.

With a question.

Sometimes it came from someone standing in our tasting room holding a glass of wine.

Sometimes it came from one of my kids riding beside me in the truck.

Sometimes it came from another farmer.

Most often...

It came from me.

I've never believed curiosity was a sign that you don't know enough.

I think it's proof that you're still learning.

The older I get, the fewer absolute answers I seem to have.

What I have instead are better questions.

Why did that block wake up first?

Why did that vine struggle while the one beside it flourished?

Why did this vintage surprise us?

Why did nature choose today to teach that lesson?

Those questions are the reason this Almanac exists.

People sometimes think experience means finally having all the answers.

I don't believe that anymore.

Experience simply means you've asked enough questions to recognize the important ones.

The vineyard has a way of reminding me that certainty can be dangerous.

Curiosity keeps me humble.

It keeps me paying attention.

And every once in a while...

It rewards me with understanding.

The pages that follow aren't meant to prove how much I know.

They're my best attempt to answer the questions I've been fortunate enough to ask.

Some answers came quickly.

Others took years.

A few are still changing.

That's okay.

The vineyard isn't finished teaching me.

I'm not finished learning.

If you came here looking for the "right" way to farm, you may leave disappointed.

There are very few perfect answers in agriculture.

There are observations.

Patterns.

Lessons.

Mistakes.

Successes.

And every now and then, something that feels true enough to write down.

That's what you'll find here.

Every Entry in this Almanac begins with a question because that's how every worthwhile lesson in my life began.

Someone asked.

Someone listened.

Someone paid attention.

Then someone took the time to pass it along.

Now it's my turn.

So from this point forward, we'll trade philosophy for practicality.

We'll talk about vines.

Soils.

Weather.

Harvest.

Fermentation.

Corks.

Barrels.

History.

The Santa Ynez Valley.

The questions people have asked me for years.

One page at a time.

One answer at a time.

I hope you find the answer you came looking for.

But even more than that...

I hope you leave with a better question.

Because that's usually where the real learning begins.

Filed Away

Answers end conversations.

Good questions begin them.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0010

Whoo... Whoo... Double Digits.

Well...

Look at that.

Ten.

If you're reading this, we've officially made it to double digits.

I know.

It doesn't exactly qualify us for literary greatness.

The Library of Congress hasn't called.

Nobody's writing college papers about The Saarloos Almanac.

And I haven't been invited to sit between Oprah and Hemingway.

But every old book that mattered once had ten pages.

Then twenty.

Then one hundred.

The difference wasn't talent.

The difference was somebody kept writing.

People often ask me how you build a vineyard.

The answer disappoints them.

One vine.

One post.

One wire.

One row.

Then you come back tomorrow and do it again.

Building this Almanac feels a lot like farming.

Nobody celebrates the tenth vine you planted.

Nobody throws a parade because you finished another row.

But someday someone drives by and says,

"That's a beautiful vineyard."

They never see the thousands of ordinary days that built it.

Life has taught me something.

Most things worth keeping don't arrive all at once.

Trust.

Respect.

Friendship.

A good marriage.

A healthy vineyard.

A strong business.

A family.

None of them happen overnight.

They're built quietly, usually when nobody's watching.

That's probably why I enjoy farming so much.

The vineyard doesn't reward excitement.

It rewards consistency.

It doesn't ask me to be brilliant.

It asks me to show up.

Again.

Tomorrow.

And the day after that.

Funny enough...

The same seems to be true for raising kids.

Running a business.

Keeping promises.

And now...

Writing a book.

I don't know how many pages this Almanac will eventually hold.

Maybe a hundred.

Maybe a thousand.

Maybe one day my kids will add pages I never imagined.

Maybe my grandchildren will laugh at something I wrote here.

I hope they do.

Because if they're reading it, that means the conversation continued.

That's all I could ever ask for.

So here's to page ten.

Not because ten is a big number.

Because ten means we didn't stop at one.

And if experience has taught me anything...

It's that the people who keep showing up usually end up seeing things the quitters never do.

Tomorrow...

We'll write page eleven.

Filed Away

Great things aren't built in giant leaps.

They're built by showing up one more time than everyone else.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0009

Why I Still Get Up Before Sunrise

There are easier ways to make a living.

Trust me.

If your goal is comfort, farming is a strange career choice.

The weather doesn't care about weekends.

The vines don't know it's Christmas.

Harvest doesn't stop because you're tired.

The work is never really finished.

Tomorrow morning there will be another gate to fix.

Another vine to check.

Another decision waiting to be made.

So people sometimes ask me,

"After all these years... why do you still do it?"

The honest answer is...

I don't know how not to.

There's something about walking a vineyard before the world wakes up.

The air is different.

The light is different.

The valley hasn't started making noise yet.

For a few minutes, it feels like the land is speaking in a language that disappears as soon as everyone else wakes up.

Those mornings have become part of me.

I've watched the same vines wake up every spring.

I've watched them struggle.

I've watched them surprise me.

I've watched them outlive expectations.

In some strange way, they've watched me too.

They've seen me become a husband.

A father.

A business owner.

A little older every season.

The vineyard has been the one constant through all of it.

People think farming teaches you how to grow plants.

It does.

But mostly it teaches you how to grow yourself.

It teaches patience when nothing is happening.

Faith when you can't control the outcome.

Humility when nature reminds you who's really in charge.

Gratitude when everything comes together for one beautiful harvest.

Those lessons are worth more than any bottle we've ever made.

I don't wake up early because I have to.

I wake up early because I don't want to miss what the vineyard is about to teach me.

Some mornings it's a lesson about grapes.

Some mornings it's a lesson about life.

I've learned not to assume I know which one it's going to be.

Maybe one day someone else will walk these same rows before sunrise.

Maybe it'll be one of my kids.

Maybe it'll be someone I never meet.

I hope they pause for just a minute before they get to work.

Because if they're quiet...

The vineyard will probably have something to say.

It always does.

Filed Away

The vineyard has never once asked me to be somewhere else.

So every morning...

I show up.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0008

Let's Walk the Rows

If you've made it this far, thank you.

You now know why this Almanac exists.

You know why I believe the vineyard is always talking.

Why paying attention matters.

Why I write things down.

Why I believe we're caretakers instead of owners.

Why curiosity matters more than certainty.

Why the vineyard has a way of humbling every one of us.

And why the biggest moments are almost always built long before anyone notices them.

Those aren't lessons about grapes.

They're lessons the grapes taught me.

Everything after this is different.

The pages ahead aren't meant to be read from beginning to end.

They're meant to be wandered through.

Some days you'll come looking for an answer about pruning.

Other days it'll be frost.

Or fermentation.

Or Ballard Canyon.

Or why a grape cracks just before harvest.

You don't have to read the whole Almanac.

Just find the page you need today.

The vineyard has a funny way of making the right lesson appear at the right time.

Some entries will answer questions.

Some will simply ask better ones.

Some will be technical.

Some will tell stories.

Some will make you laugh.

I hope a few make you stop and think.

All of them will come from the same place.

A farmer trying to pay attention.

One promise before we begin.

If I know something because I lived it, I'll tell you.

If I learned it from someone wiser than me, I'll tell you that too.

If I'm guessing, I'll say so.

And if I change my mind twenty years from now because the vineyard teaches me something new...

I'll come back and write another entry.

That's the privilege of an Almanac.

It isn't frozen in time.

It grows.

Just like a vineyard.

Just like a family.

People often ask me where they should start learning about wine.

I usually tell them not to start in the cellar.

Start in the dirt.

Everything good in a bottle begins long before a cork is ever pulled.

The vineyard writes the first chapter.

The winemaker simply finishes the sentence.

So let's leave the porch.

Let's step into the rows.

Let's get a little dirt on our boots.

Let's start asking questions.

Because somewhere between these vines and these pages, I hope you'll begin seeing the world the way a farmer does.

Welcome to the first entry.

We've got work to do.

Filed Away

Every great bottle begins with a question.

Let's go find the answers together.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0007

Every Harvest Begins Long Before Harvest

People love harvest.

The excitement.

The tractors.

The smell of fermentation.

The long days.

The photos.

It's the part everyone sees.

What most people don't realize is that harvest doesn't begin in September.

It begins months earlier.

Sometimes years earlier.

The decisions that determine harvest are rarely made during harvest.

They're made on cold mornings in January with pruning shears in your hand.

They're made when you're deciding which vine needs one more chance and which one doesn't.

They're made when you choose patience over convenience.

Or quality over quantity.

Harvest simply reveals those decisions.

That's one of the hardest lessons farming ever taught me.

You don't build a great vintage at the finish line.

You build it one ordinary day at a time.

Long before anyone is paying attention.

Life has a way of working the same way.

Good marriages aren't built on anniversaries.

They're built on ordinary Tuesdays.

Healthy families aren't created on Christmas morning.

They're created over thousands of dinners around the same table.

Businesses aren't defined by their biggest sale.

They're defined by hundreds of small promises that were quietly kept.

Harvest doesn't create character.

Harvest reveals it.

Every season there comes a moment when people say,

"Looks like you're going to have a great harvest."

I usually smile.

Because by then, most of the work has already been done.

The vineyard has been keeping score since the first cut of winter pruning.

I think that's why farming has made me more patient.

Nature isn't impressed by urgency.

She rewards consistency.

Show up.

Pay attention.

Do the work.

Repeat.

The vineyard has never once asked me to be extraordinary.

It has simply asked me to be faithful.

Day after day.

Season after season.

Maybe that's why I love this work so much.

Farming reminds me that the biggest moments in life are usually the result of a thousand small moments no one else ever saw.

The applause comes at harvest.

The work happened months ago.

As I write these pages, I keep reminding myself of something.

This Almanac won't become valuable because of one great entry.

It will become valuable because I keep showing up to write the next one.

Just like farming.

One season.

One lesson.

One page at a time.

Filed Away

Harvest doesn't create character.

It reveals the character you've been building all along.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0006

The Vineyard Doesn't Care Who You Are

I've spent most of my life trying to understand a piece of land.

Some years I thought I had it figured out.

The vineyard always had another lesson waiting for me.

That's one of the reasons I love farming.

The vineyard doesn't care who you are.

It doesn't care if you're rich.

It doesn't care if you're broke.

It doesn't care how many bottles you sold last year.

It doesn't care how many followers you have.

It doesn't care how long your résumé is.

Every spring it asks exactly the same question.

"Did you pay attention?"

The vineyard doesn't hand out participation trophies.

It doesn't care what your intentions were.

It responds only to what you actually did.

Or what you failed to do.

You can't negotiate with frost.

You can't argue with drought.

You can't convince a vine to produce because you worked hard yesterday.

Nature isn't unfair.

She's consistent.

Brutally consistent.

I've had seasons when I thought I had everything under control.

Then a heat wave reminded me I didn't.

I've had years when I wondered if I belonged out here at all.

The vineyard had something to teach me then, too.

That's the gift of farming.

It has a way of removing your ego before it removes your crop.

People ask me how I've managed to stay in farming all these years.

The answer isn't because I avoided failure.

It's because I finally stopped arguing with it.

Failure is expensive.

But so is tuition.

One teaches you exactly what the other does.

The only difference is whether you're willing to learn.

This Almanac isn't a collection of all the things I got right.

It's a record of the lessons I paid for.

Some with sweat.

Some with sleep.

Some with money.

Some with pride.

The expensive lessons deserve to be shared.

Otherwise someone else has to pay for them all over again.

The longer I farm, the more I realize the vineyard isn't trying to embarrass me.

It's trying to refine me.

Every difficult season strips away something unnecessary.

Overconfidence.

Impatience.

Control.

What's left is usually a better farmer.

Hopefully a better husband.

A better father.

A better friend.

Maybe even a better man.

Life works the same way.

Families don't grow because everything goes according to plan.

Businesses aren't built without setbacks.

Faith isn't strengthened when every prayer is answered exactly the way we wanted.

Growth almost always comes wrapped inside something we'd rather avoid.

The vineyard taught me that long before I recognized it anywhere else.

So if these pages ever sound certain, remember this.

They're not written by someone who conquered farming.

They're written by someone who's been corrected by it.

Again.

And again.

And again.

I'm grateful for every correction.

Because every one of them made me a little less convinced of myself...

...and a little more convinced that the vineyard always knows first.

Filed Away

The vineyard doesn't care who you are.

It only responds to how well you've listened.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0005 Curiosity Is the Farmer's Greatest Tool

People think a farmer's most valuable tools are a tractor.

A shovel.

A pair of pruning shears.

Maybe a weather station.

They're all important.

But none of them compare to curiosity.

Curiosity has kept more vineyards alive than any piece of equipment ever built.

The day you believe you've figured farming out...

You're already behind.

Nature has a funny way of humbling people who think they've mastered her.

She changes the weather.

The soil.

The timing.

The pests.

The rain.

The wind.

Just enough to remind you who's really in charge.

I've farmed long enough to know one thing for certain.

The vineyard owes me nothing.

Every season starts with another test.

Every sunrise asks another question.

Did you notice?

Did you prepare?

Were you paying attention?

Did you learn anything last year?

Some mornings I walk the vineyard looking for problems.

Other mornings I walk looking for surprises.

Most days I find both.

The more curious I become, the less the vineyard feels like work.

It feels like a conversation.

One where I spend far more time listening than talking.

I worry less about having the right answers today than I do about asking the right questions tomorrow.

Why did that vine struggle?

Why did those roots reach deeper?

Why did one block thrive while another simply survived?

The answers matter.

But the questions are what keep me walking.

Curiosity doesn't just make better farmers.

It makes better parents.

Better husbands.

Better neighbors.

Better business owners.

The moment we stop asking questions, we begin repeating ourselves.

Life gets smaller.

The world becomes less interesting.

Wonder quietly disappears.

I've met people who know more about wine than I'll ever know.

I've met scientists who understand vines at a molecular level.

I've learned from every one of them.

Because curiosity doesn't care where wisdom comes from.

It only asks that you're humble enough to recognize it when it arrives.

If there's one thing I hope my children inherit from me, it isn't my vineyards.

It isn't the winery.

It isn't even this Almanac.

I hope they inherit the desire to keep asking questions.

Because curious people continue growing long after everyone else believes they've arrived.

Maybe that's why I've never really thought of myself as an expert.

Experts sound finished.

Farmers aren't finished.

Tomorrow morning we'll walk back into the vineyard and discover something we've never seen before.

That's enough to get me out of bed.

Filed Away

The day you stop asking questions is the day the vineyard stops teaching you.

Stay curious.

The vines still have more to say.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0004 - We Never Really Own the Land

People ask me how long my family's been farming.

It's a fair question.

But I've never liked the way it's asked.

Because it assumes something I don't believe.

That we own this place.

The truth is...

We're just taking our turn.

Long before I walked these vineyard rows, someone else did.

Long before they did, someone else cared for this valley too.

And someday, someone will walk these same rows after I'm gone.

That's the part that keeps me grounded.

The land doesn't belong to me.

I'm simply the current caretaker.

I don't measure success by how much I can take from the vineyard.

I measure it by what I leave behind.

Healthier soil.

Stronger vines.

A little more knowledge.

A family that still wants to farm.

If I can leave those things better than I found them, then I've done my job.

Modern life teaches us to think in quarters.

Farming teaches you to think in generations.

A vineyard doesn't care about next month's numbers.

Some decisions don't reveal whether they were good or bad for ten years.

Others take twenty.

You plant vines knowing someone else may enjoy their best fruit.

You plant oak trees knowing you'll never sit in their shade.

That's not sacrifice.

That's stewardship.

The same is true of families.

Every generation inherits something.

Some inherit money.

Some inherit problems.

Some inherit opportunity.

Some inherit wisdom.

This Almanac is my attempt to leave behind the last one.

I've made plenty of mistakes.

I'll make more.

This isn't a book written by someone who figured it all out.

It's written by someone who finally realized that every lesson disappears unless someone chooses to preserve it.

If I can spare my children one unnecessary mistake...

If I can help a young farmer notice something I almost missed...

If I can explain why we did what we did...

Then these pages have already been worth writing.

One day this Almanac won't belong to me either.

I hope someone else keeps writing.

Adds another page.

Corrects something I misunderstood.

Improves an idea.

Challenges a conclusion.

That's how knowledge survives.

Not because one person was right.

Because every generation cared enough to continue the conversation.

I don't believe we're called to own this land.

I believe we're called to care for it.

The same way we're called to care for our families.

Our communities.

Our faith.

And the people who will someday inherit all of it.

Filed Away

You never really own the land.

You're simply entrusted with it until it's someone else's turn.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0003 Memory Has an Expiration Date

I've always believed I would remember.

Remember the great harvest.

Remember the mistake.

Remember the lesson.

Remember the story Larry told me while we were fixing a pump.

Remember what happened after that late frost.

Remember why one block always ripens a week before the others.

The problem is...

Memory has an expiration date.

Not because we don't care.

Because life keeps moving.

One harvest becomes another.

One season rolls into the next.

The details begin to fade.

What felt unforgettable slowly becomes,

"I know it happened... I just can't remember exactly how."

I've caught myself standing in the vineyard thinking,

"I know I've seen this before."

I remember the feeling.

I remember the outcome.

But I can't always remember what led us there.

That's a dangerous place to be.

Because farming has a funny way of asking the same questions over and over again.

If you don't remember yesterday's answer, you'll spend tomorrow learning the same lesson.

Again.

The older I get, the less interested I am in being right.

I'm more interested in remembering.

What worked.

What didn't.

Why.

Sometimes the smallest observation changes everything.

"The wind shifted two days earlier."

"The cattle stayed longer than usual."

"That vine struggled after we changed one small thing."

None of those seem important on the day they happen.

Twenty years later, they're priceless.

This Almanac isn't an attempt to prove that I know everything.

It's proof that I know I'll forget.

So I'm writing it down.

Not because my memory is failing.

Because memory was never meant to carry an entire lifetime by itself.

Paper remembers.

Books remember.

Families remember.

If we give them something worth remembering.

One day, someone will walk these same vineyard rows after I'm gone.

Maybe they'll wonder why that block was planted there.

Maybe they'll ask why we waited one more week before harvest.

Maybe they'll stand under the same oak tree and ask the same questions I did.

I hope they find the answers here.

Or at least enough clues to ask a better question.

Every page in this Almanac is one less lesson that has to disappear.

One more conversation that gets to outlive the people who started it.

Maybe that's what legacy really is.

Not leaving behind something valuable.

Leaving behind something useful.

Filed Away

Memory fades. Written lessons endure.

The greatest harvest isn't the one you bring into the cellar.

It's the wisdom that survives long after you're gone.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons

Excerpt No. 0002 - The Vineyard Is Always Talking

If you've never farmed before, it's easy to believe the vineyard is quiet.

Rows of vines.

A little breeze.

Birds in the distance.

Looks peaceful.

But spend enough time here, and you realize something.

The vineyard never stops talking.

It just doesn't use words.

It speaks through leaves.

Through soil.

Through the smell of the air before sunrise.

Through a vine that's growing just a little slower than the one beside it.

Through a cluster that doesn't quite look right.

Through birds landing in one corner of the vineyard and nowhere else.

The conversation never ends.

The question is whether you're paying attention.

When I first started farming, I thought experience meant knowing all the answers.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Experience isn't having the answers.

Experience is learning which questions to ask.

Why is this row ahead of the others?

Why did these vines wake up first?

Why does frost always settle here?

Why did this block produce twenty more boxes than it did five years ago?

Nothing happens by accident.

Everything has a reason.

Nature leaves clues everywhere.

She whispers long before she screams.

If you're paying attention, you'll usually hear the whisper.

People think farming is hard because it's physical.

Some days it is.

But that's not the difficult part.

The difficult part is noticing.

Every morning you walk into the vineyard and begin collecting clues.

The wind changed overnight.

The soil is holding a little more moisture.

The birds are acting differently.

The vines are reaching.

The insects showed up early.

One clue means very little.

A hundred clues begin telling a story.

Good farmers don't force nature to behave.

They learn her language.

The longer I farm, the more I realize the vineyard has been teaching me about far more than grapes.

It's taught me patience.

Humility.

Consistency.

Responsibility.

It taught me that every shortcut eventually sends you back to where you should have started.

It taught me that problems are easier to solve when they're still small.

It taught me that showing up every day matters more than showing up perfectly once.

Funny enough, those lessons have helped me raise children better than they've helped me grow grapes.

That's what this Almanac is really about.

Yes, there will be pages about pruning.

Harvest.

Fermentation.

Weather.

Cattle.

Soils.

But underneath every one of those topics is a much bigger lesson.

Life.

The vineyard simply happens to be where I learned it.

As you read these pages, I hope you notice something.

I'm not trying to teach you how to farm exactly like me.

I'm trying to teach you how to observe.

Because once you learn to pay attention, the vineyard becomes your teacher too.

Mine has been teaching me for nearly thirty years.

I still walk out there most mornings expecting to learn something new.

So far, it hasn't disappointed me.

Filed Away

The vineyard is always talking.

The best farmers aren't the ones who know the most.

They're the ones who notice the most.

Excerpt 0001 - It Begins Here

It Begins Here

Every Almanac entry starts at 0001.

This page exists before the first lesson.

It explains why the book exists.

Some of the greatest things I've ever learned were never written down.

They were spoken while fixing a fence.

While walking vineyard rows before the sun came up.

Over the hood of an old truck.

At the kitchen table after a long day.

Or standing beside someone who had already made the mistake I was about to make.

That's how farming has always worked.

One generation teaches the next.

Not because they're trying to become famous.

Because they're trying to make sure the next generation starts a little farther down the road than they did.

I've often thought about what I wish my grandfather had handed me.

Not money.

Not land.

Not even wine.

I wish he'd handed me a stack of old notebooks.

Maybe they were worn-out phone books with dirt on the covers and coffee stains on the pages. Maybe there were notes scribbled in the margins after a long day in the vineyard.

"Watch this block after a dry winter."

"The cows taught me something today."

"Don't rush harvest because you're tired."

"Trust your nose."

"Larry was right."

Not polished.

Not edited.

Not written for anyone but the people who came after him.

I never inherited those notebooks.

So I'm starting them.

People say the best time to plant a tree was thirty years ago.

The second-best time is today.

This is today.

The Saarloos Almanac isn't a blog.

It isn't a collection of marketing articles.

It isn't another winery trying to convince you that their wine is better than someone else's.

This is a living record.

A place to preserve the lessons that are too valuable to disappear.

The observations.

The mistakes.

The victories.

The questions.

The stories behind the bottles.

The stories behind our family.

The things you only learn by paying attention, season after season, year after year.

Some of these pages will be about farming.

Some will be about wine.

Some will have nothing to do with either.

Because life has a funny way of teaching the same lesson in different places.

If you spend enough time farming, you realize something.

The vineyard is always teaching.

Every season leaves behind another lesson.

The problem is that too many of those lessons leave with the people who learned them.

I don't want that to happen here.

If I learn something worth remembering, it belongs in these pages.

If I make a mistake worth admitting, it belongs here too.

Maybe someone else will avoid making it.

Maybe someone will make a better one.

Either way, the conversation continues.

This Almanac is first for my family.

I hope one day my children add to it.

I hope someday my grandchildren read it.

I hope they argue with me.

Correct me.

Improve on what I've written.

Because that's how families grow.

No one generation finishes the story.

We simply write the chapter we've been given.

If you're not a Saarloos, I'm glad you're here too.

You're welcome to walk these rows with us.

Ask questions.

Challenge assumptions.

Learn alongside us.

Everything in these pages was earned the slow way.

One sunrise.

One harvest.

One mistake.

One season at a time.

I don't know how many pages this Almanac will one day hold.

Maybe one hundred.

Maybe one thousand.

Maybe it'll outlive me entirely.

I hope it does.

Because if these pages accomplish anything, I hope it's this:

That someone I never meet learns something from someone they'll never know.

Just as if an old farmer had finally handed me those notebooks I'd always wished existed.

This is the first page.

Let's see where it takes us.

Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons