fallowed vineyard, Albuquerque, New Mexico, December 2021

My newest hobby – running down the water story for random patches of Albuquerque.

From Sunday’s bike ride, a fallowed vineyard, a bit more than an acre in size.

It’s at the base of the sand hills on the east side of the Rio Grande Valley, just down the hill from a Ford dealer.

Per OpenET, it hasn’t been irrigated since at least 2016 (that’s as far back as I can look currently).

Doesn’t look like it has access to ditch water (it’s uphill from the closest irrigation, the Alameda Lateral). The nearest well is a state-approved yard well across the street, drilled in 1967.

Healthy crop of tumbleweeds this year. Per county assessor records, that seems to have been sufficient to claim agricultural property tax break.

But here’s the best part:

The three closest streets are named “Vineyard”, “Muscatel”, and “Tokay” (an Anglicization of “Tokaji” – wines from a region called Tokaj in Hungary and Slovakia).

Clearly, further research needed.