First harvest comes to an Arroyo Seco vineyard.

831 Tales of the Area Code For three years the vines of syrah, primativo and sangiovese grapes at Mesa del Sol flourished and grew. When they first arrived at the dusty 14-acre farm in Arroyo Seco (once a stagecoach stop, later a tuberculosis sanitarium), they were "dormant root stock"--bare sticks bred for disease resistance and harboring a stubborn streak of vitality. They were planted in the warmth of May 1998.

Their progress reads like that of precocious children. In that first hot, dry summer, they clambered onto the horizontal wires meant to support them in their maturity, only to be pruned back to the ground. They sent up foliage the second year, more luxuriantly this time, as if to foil another authoritarian pruning. Through the alchemy of photosynthesis, the leaves turned light into nutrients and sent them flooding into the roots so that they, too, grew stronger.

That second summer the young vines produced their first grapes. Again the hands of husbandry interfered, snipping off the clusters before they could ripen, adhering to tenets that seem more folksy than scientific: preserve vitality for old age by allowing for plenty of play in youth.

Year Three the vines, larger and stronger now, produced berries once again, and this time half were trimmed off and half allowed to mature. Those that remained drew water from the roots and sugar from the leaves'' endless passive toil, and as summer progressed the small grapes, not much larger than peas, swelled and darkened. The breeding in the bare sticks of 1998 expressed itself in nuances and subtle shadings of flavor and texture. The tannins in the skins matured. It was not too hot, which is good; on the very hot days of early autumn, ripening accelerated, threatening to raisin the warm berries, and during the cool nights water plumped them back up again. Winemakers came into the vineyard and sampled the grapes, went away, came back again.

Finally, on the morning of Oct. 1, one of the hottest days of 2001, crews arrived for harvest.

While the pickers, swathed in layers even in the baking heat, raced down rows of syrah with their clippers and yellow tubs, Anne Hougham and Stuart Satchell worked ahead, rolling back green netting from adjacent rows. Satchell, a family friend, was there to help. Hougham owns Mesa del Sol. The netting, like the bright silver strips of Mylar tied to the vines, like the eight stylish "action figure" scarecrows made by Hougham and some girlfriends one afternoon, were put there to help her sleep better: blackbirds came early this season and gave her nightmares.

"They can eat your whole crop," she said, reaching up to pull netting off a high branch. "I was really worried because I''m the first vineyard after Ventana." Eventually she hung up speakers broadcasting hawk attack screeches and the distress calls of other birds. It worked passably well, as did the netting, the Mylar, the scarecrows and the soap and oil applied as "pesticides" to the organic vines.

Hougham and her husband Jacob, an agricultural entrepreneur who devised a way to keep lettuce fresh during transport, planted the vines together. She harvested alone. "He died in October," she said. Maybe it''s easier than saying "a year ago." Meeting Hougham and knowing this reminds one that it is possible to take pain gracefully. She has the healthy tan and energy of a young woman, the eyes and thoughtfulness of an older one.

While we talked about the vines and about Jacob''s work, a young man named Eduardo drove up in the forklift and deposited another half-ton bin under a row of oak trees. Satchell shook his head. "They are running up those rows," he marveled.

It was true. The day was getting savagely hot, and the crew of 15 was fanned out, trimming furiously and running tubs of grapes to the big bins. By day''s end they''d harvested 13 tons of grapes at about $100 per ton, not counting the sangiovese.

The wineries were lined up, mostly for the syrah: Morgan, Cloninger Cellars, Hunter Hill, Pietra Sante. Steve Pessagno, winemaker for Lockwood, took some syrah and the primativo, an ancestor of zinfandel, for his own label, Pessagno Winery. Anxious, Hougham called him the day after delivery.

"''Anne,''" she recalls him saying, "''they''re absolutely perfect.''"

"Anne''s got a really nice situation," Pessagno said later. "I always thought that Arroyo Seco would be the ideal place for certain grape varieties. Zinfandel is one of them."

Most of Hougham''s grapes, he explained, packed between 25 and 26 Brix, or percent sugars--slightly higher than most grapes. "I''m looking for really monstrous, powerhouse wines," Pessagno said. "You can tell when a vineyard looks right and the berries look right and you''re gonna get the intensity."

It will be another two years before the Mesa del Sol grapes meet their second reckoning. Two more seasons of warm days and cool nights, two more cycles of slumber and reawakening, two more rounds of pruning and regrowth. Sooner than anyone will believe, the second harvest will come, the echo of this first one which, 26 percent sugars aside, must have tasted bittersweet.