Part Two: Clearing the Land

20 Years of Cinnabar: 1983-2003

“It was my first day on the job,” recalls Ron Mosley. “Tom handed me an old Craftsman chain saw and said, ‘I think it still works,’ and as he walked away, ‘see you next week’. I had three hundred dollars in the bank and a three-week-old son; I wasn’t about to tell him I had no idea which end of a saw to pull. I learned quickly. One year later, the planting was complete.”

Tom Mudd and Ron Mosley were destined to work with one another. Tom needed someone with stability to plant his newly purchased property while Ron, a recent graduate of UC Davis, needed a job with stability for his growing family. The journey began with tree cutting in the spring of 1983.

Local farmer Pete Messa finished clearing the land and ripping soils with a Caterpillar D5 that summer. “He handled a bulldozer like a surgeon,” says Ron. Pete cleared 23 plantable acres, three more than Tom had estimated.

Soils were tested and balanced for nutrition; potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen and trace elements were added before a mix of cover crops was seeded in the fall.

Next, the shallow mountain soils needed to be protected from the ensuing rains. Ron installed a system that would collect water and move it downhill to natural runoff areas via surface trenches, inlets and underground drains.

Meanwhile, Tom cut bud wood from Mt. Eden and had it bench grafted to rootstock in anticipation of next year’s planting. He continued the process of establishing electrical power on the remote location as well.

With Tom and Ron as surveyors, a vineyard grid was laid out and an irrigation system installed the following spring.

Power was connected on nearly the same day as vines were delivered in April, assuring that irrigation would be available. It was none too soon since young vines need plenty of water. Tom, Ron and 14 workers established Cinnabar’s first vineyards on June 24, 1984 when the last of the 15,474 vines was planted.

Tom remembers that the process was physically demanding. “Planting on a mountaintop is twice as difficult as planting on flat land,” he says. He also recalls having poison oak for two years. Ron says he had it on various parts of his body for three years!!

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