AUTUMN GOLD

Every tourist brochure ever written about autumn in Wine Country mentions the grapes, the harvests and sometimes even the grape harvests. But few ever mention the Harvest Moon. It hangs in the sky like a gentle giant, rising early to bathe the vines and lingering into the morning until long after the sun has joined it. To early day Indians, it signaled the time for a winter harvest. To farmers and other old-timers, it's a sign that fall rains and cool weather are just weeks away.

Photographer Kent Porter has been stalking the Harvest Moon for some 15 years, hoping for the money shot of moon over golden vines and countryside on a cool, clear evening. On Sept. 29, he got what he was after at exactly 5:55 p.m., when the light was perfectly neutral, allowing the moon to glow without washing away the glimmer of the vines and the timbre of this iconic barn on Slusser Road at River Road.

Plump chardonnay grapes in a vineyard off Piner Road and picture-perfect leaves on Boas Drive, frozen in time by photographer Crista Jeremiason, remind us to occasionally drop our gaze and appreciate the beauty and abundance of this classic Sonoma County autumn.