LOMPOC, Calif. — Grape grower Steve Pepe has a new crew of weed whackers who lack Social Security numbers, couldn't care less about health insurance and will never ask for a raise.
Henley, Matilda and Althea are Babydolls, miniature sheep that top off at 2 feet. What they lack in stature they make up for in promise. If they work out, Pepe will be able to avoid farm chemicals, slash weeding bills and improve his soil.
The sheep have voracious appetites for weeds, but they aren't quite tall enough to reach fruit on trellised grape vines. Looking like muddy cotton balls as they forage on Pepe's Santa Rita Hills farm, the sheep feel like a damp, dirty sweater.
Pepe watches Matilda and her co-workers mow away clump after clump of nettlesome weeds. They seem to digest them almost instantly, producing healthier vines with their natural fertilizers.
That means more flinty Chardonnays and Pinots Noirs with hints of cedar and black cherries for customers who are increasingly demanding organic wines.
Perhaps, Pepe muses, the sheep will be the secret ingredient that brings his prized Clos Pepe Pinot Noir, which retails for $40 a bottle, more gold medals. California has been known for revolutionizing the wine world with innovations such as harvesting grapes at night and using stainless steel tanks for fermentation. Vintners -- including Clos Pepe in Santa Barbara County, Puma Springs Vineyard in Sonoma County and Navarro Vineyards in Mendocino County -- are embracing the toy-size sheep.
In Mendocino County, University of California researchers are trying to train full-size sheep -- which can grow upward of 36 inches tall -- to give up eating grape leaves and become biological lawnmowers.
Researchers allow the sheep to chomp grape leaves in a small Hopland vineyard, then immediately feed the animals a dose of lithium chloride, which makes the sheep sick to their vinifera-filled stomachs.
"We are trying to create a powerful negative association with grape leaves," said Morgan Doran, a livestock expert at the UC Cooperative Extension in Fairfield, Calif.
But some farmers say they don't need research to tell them that Babydolls are the real deal: They don't need to be conditioned to eschew grapes.
Sarah Bennett, whose family owns Navarro Vineyards, said she was surprised at how hard her leased flock worked, even eating the "suckers," or green shoots that grow off the woody lower sections of the vines.
