CalCoastNews Contributor

John Salisbury

John is a 6th generation California farmer whose family has been continuously farmed in California for 160 years. John now concentrates on farming 45 acres of wine grapes in the Avila Valley and Paso Robles producing Salisbury Vineyard wines.
Salisbury Vineyards He is also found In the Vines

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Local farm laborers, NAFTA, and child labor laws

OPINION By JOHN SALISBURY It is time for a little recap on developments on past articles. The first is that the White House, after facing fierce political pressure from Republicans, rural Democrats and farm groups across the nation has backed off on their draconian child farm labor rules proposed by the Department of Labor. These […]... (Continue Reading)

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Cost of Sacramento Delta water woes

OPINION By JOHN SALISBURY Here I go again! I was thinking of giving the Sacramento Delta water woes a rest but a fairly recent move, discussed in an editorial in the San Fransisco Chronicle in December, by our old friend the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has got me going again. Not meaning to bore […]... (Continue Reading)

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Protecting our water rights

OPINION By JOHN SALISBURY Up north, we long-time farmers have been hearing a great sucking sound south of us that is going to get a lot louder if the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act, authored by San Joaquin Valley representatives, that was passed by members of both parties in the U.S. House of Representatives […]... (Continue Reading)

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Proposed federal ag child labor regulations overreaching

OPINION By JOHN SALISBURY Mercy, Mercy! Please deliver us from these nanny-state unregulated regulators who have set their sights on agriculture child labor laws. If you have chanced upon my columns in the Avila Community News, Cal Coast News, or at our blog inthevines.com, you know that I have been lamenting the lack of work […]... (Continue Reading)

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We need a commonsense guest worker program

OPINION By JOHN SALISBURY A report on our Citizen wine grape picking crew. After a “Call to Arms” for local unemployed citizens to pick grapes that started in our monthly column in the Avila Community News and our blog inthevines.com, we were picked up by Cal Coast News, Lewis Perdue’s international “New Fetch” wine blog […]... (Continue Reading)

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NAFTA Truck Fiasco

OPINION By JOHN SALISBURY We really weaseled out on our part of North American Free Trade Agreement-1994 (NAFTA) which included a requirement that Canada, Mexico, and the United States allow full access to each country’s highways. Pressure from the trucking labor unions and their unfounded claims that Mexican trucks and drivers were unsafe, had environmental […]... (Continue Reading)

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Do sulfates in wine cause headaches?

By JOHN SALISBURY “I get a headache from the sulfites in the wine but when I go to Europe and drink their wine, I don’t get them because they don’t use sulfites,” some say. Not so. There is a lot of misinformation out there about sulfites (sulfur dioxide and its other forms) and wine. Sulfites […]... (Continue Reading)

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Card checks, unions and guest workers

OPINION By JOHN SALISBURY California agriculture has some real possible tough sledding coming down the pike this summer. Revised card check, E-Verify, new regulations from the State Water Quality Control Board and Air Resources Board, and increased audits by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) just to name a few. Many of you probably think […]... (Continue Reading)

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Wine, teeth and truffles

By JOHN SALISBURY Truffles anyone? How about wine and what it does to your teeth and throat?  Here is the lowdown on both starting with teeth. Both white and red wines fight germs that can cause sore throats and dental plaque. It is not so much the alcohol and acidity, but the combination of carbon […]... (Continue Reading)

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In the vines

By JOHN SALISBURY Well, ol’ Jack Frost nicked us the second weekend of April in Avila Valley. It got down to 32.5 just long enough to nip some of our Pinot Grigio and the Pinot Naturale block. Usually, we would have sprayed at least one application of our organic mineral oil and a shot of […]... (Continue Reading)

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