Science has yet, however, to fully grasp this complex matrix of hosts, climates and transmissions. Hundreds of yards of yellow sticky tape were stretched around the vineyards to catch sharpshooters and determine their travel patterns, and the vineyards themselves were placed under ongoing scrutiny. What they found was that the vine-attacking sharpshooters' favored habitats and movements in the Santa Cruz Mountains are different than those in hot spots on the North Coast, where they breed in the peripheral riparian habitats. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, however, they breed primarily on the vines. What occurs, then, is a vicious cycle, whereby the disease is not only spread from peripheral vegetation to vines, but also by young sharpshooters that, after feeding on diseased leaves, spend the winter in the forest, only to return to the vineyard to reproduce the following spring.
Small vineyards are all edge.
So, unlike the North Coast, where many vineyards sprawl for hundreds of acres, most of the vines in the Santa Cruz Mountains are at risk because they reside in small blocks. Greg Stokes watched powerlessly as Pierce's disease decimated row after row of prized vines at David Bruce Winery, a 25-acre estate vineyard located between Los Gatos and Ben Lomond ,which for decades yielded some of the region's most distinctive and critically acclaimed wines. It was amazing. Pierce's disease has mowed through vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains, including the critically acclaimed David Bruce Winery, which recently replanted in hopes of survival. Planted in the early 1960s, David Bruce's vineyard produced what many considered some of the area's finest chardonnays and pinot noirs.