The weather has settled into a wonderful summer pattern of warm days and cool nights, with no change in sight.  Fruit dropping has been completed in the primitivo vineyard, and the fruit still hanging appears to be of excellent quality.  Our focus in the primitivo vineyard has now shifted to bird control, as a small experimental block of tempranillo grapes (which, true to their name in Spanish, ripen early) was decimated by birds, and they began to take interest in the primitivo.  Multiple legal methods of bird control are being employed.  The first grape chemistry readings were taken from a sample of block 6 primitivo, and this suggests that we are on target for an early- to mid-September harvest of that varietal.  Fruit dropping in the later-ripening barbera vineyard is ongoing.