On the Contrary

Sorry for the delay.  Vine/Wine has been missing in action due to my heavy work schedule, lazy disposition, and interuprion of my blog site (See I’m Back, Maybe).  Anywy last weekend we had a lovely visit from Tracey and Jared Brandt of A Donkey and Goat.  We were joined by Ron Mansfield (Goldbud, and my vineyard consultant) had a lovely lamb dinner, and did some tasting of my different grapes.  Jared brought a sampling of my Grenache, my lower vineyard Syrah, and upper vineyard Syrah.  It had its own distinct flavor (obviously the Grenache was different from my Syrah, but both Syrahs were distinctly different) which tells you a lot about terroir.  We had wine and cheese and some sausage for starters, a green salad with sliced peaches and a light vinaigrette dressing, slow grilled leg of lamb, grilled potatoes, sliced fresh tomatoes, avocado, and red onion, with peach crisp for desert.

Candace, Jared, Ron, and Tracey Testing Our Good Work

Now to catch up up here is the news from the vineyard for last week:

Vine:  Okay, I admit it.  I have been very lax at writing about the vineyard.  That is because between my trip to France and my consulting work, I really haven’t been home much.  It is hard to write about what is going on in the vineyard from a hotel room in Burlingame, CA.  But I have been home for a week, almost caught up in the vineyard so here is where things are:  I have completed all of thinning with help from a crew that Ron Mansfield sent up.  Grapes are prolific little devils and will push shoots from everywhere.  So as I have reported in the past, you need to thin to two shoots per spur, assuming the spur is large enough to support two shoots.  An additional task for the trellis grapes (Syrah and Viognier) is to make sure the shoots are pushed up through the top wire so they don’t hang over the lower grape clusters and block their light.  It also expands out the foliage so that you are maximizing your sun gathering ability and providing room for air circulation.  This is a fairly simple job if done early, and a bear if done late when the shoots are 10’-12’ long.  I am always late because I am always gone during the critical time.  Anyway all that has been done, we have had good cluster formation and it looks like a large crop.  What comes next is just some thinning of the leaf cover especially around the grape clusters to balance the plant (leaf cover to clusters).  Once veraison (grapes turn red) occurs we will be going through and thinning the crop by dropping whole clusters to focus the nutrients and flavoids into the remaining crop.

Heavy Berry Load on the Mourvedre

Water this year has been very interesting.  I practice what is called deficit watering which allows the plant to almost go into shutdown before watering through drip irrigation to saturation at the 3’ level and then repeating the cycle.  The theory and some studies done by UC Davis show that this practice, although reducing production by about 15%, greatly increases the quality of the grape (flavors).  There are really two advantages.  The first is that as mentioned above, the quality is increased because the poor little grape plant starts to need water, figures it isn’t going to get anymore, and like any good parent when her children are threatened, focuses all her attention on her future by pumping nutrients to her progeny.   Or said another way, when the plant is stressed it focuses its growth on its future in the form of its grapes.  The second advantage is that deficit watering is believed to force the roots to go deeper and deeper into the soil looking for water.  This helps establish the plant, protect it from disease, and makes it less susceptible to damage in a prolonged drought.  This year I thought because of the dry spring I would be watering early.  I was wrong.  Based upon my moisture sensors that I have buried throughout my vineyard, I have only watered two blocks so far (Upper Syrah, and Grenache).  It takes about 96 hours of dripping 1 gallon emitters to saturate down to this level. The Mourvedre and lower Syrah have yet to receive any water and are growing quite nicely.  I would guess I will need to water the Mourvedre in the next week, and the lower Syrah, maybe not until August.  Each year I learn a little more about what my moisture sensors are telling me and allows me to stress them a little more.  On other thing, I moved the drip tips from near the plan to between the plants.  This seems to work well and keeps moisture away from the base of the trunk.

I completed several other nasty little tasks like mowing all the grass (annuals who have died out) and then weed-eating the hard to reach areas and doing some weed control.  But things are pretty much stabilized now and in good balance so now we wait for veraison, grape ripening in September, and the annual attack of the birds.  In other words, the major work is done and now I can just enjoy the beauty.

Wine:   I have lived such a sheltered life lately that I have stuck to my tried and true favorite Syrahs.  That would be Holly’s Hill’s East Slope Syrah and Mira Flores Methode Ancienne Syrah.  Both excellent Syrahs, but there are so many good wines out there including interesting Italian’s that are being grown up here, that I really need to get out.  I will pass on one piece of advice:  A friend of mine at a business lunch was telling me that his wife had bought him some wine in a carton, and it “wasn’t bad”.  I reminded him that I had a colonoscopy recently and it “wasn’t bad” either, but it is not something I would choose to do.  One of the important skills a wine lover learns is to discern good from bad wine as opposed to different styles of wine which don’t necessary appeal to your taste.  I have reached a stage in my life where I will never settle for an inferior wine.  There are just too many good ones out there and my time to taste them is limited.  A good wine is dependent on the style, reason you are drinking it, and of course the quality of the grape and the art of the wine maker.  For example on a hot day you are not usually looking for a full bodied red and a flavorful Sauvignon Blanc or a blend of Viognier and Roussanne, is quite nice if it is dry, acid, and fruity, with a clean finish.   If it is missing any of these characteristics, well, toss it.  I could go on, but you get my drift.  Enjoying wine is a lesson in life:  First and foremost slow down, feel it, smell it, taste it, savior it, and think about what you have just experienced.  Second don’t settle for just okay.  Maybe we have to make compromises in our lives, but I am not going to do that with my wine.

One last thought for you Pinot drinkers and I love a good Pinot.  My experience tells me this:  There are only two kinds of Pinots, good and bad.  There is no just okay and you get exactly what you pay for most of the time.  Or said another way, I have never found a cheap bottle of good pinot noir.  I have found a few bad bottles of expensive pinot noir, but the good ones were never cheap.  I think that comes from the nature of the finicky grape which makes it very hard to produce a consistently good wine.  So it has no middle ground, just wonderful or tossable.  I have two to try, a 2003 Marimar Estate Pinot (Russian River Valley), and a 2006 Migration (Anderson Valley).  I will let you know what I think.  Carpe Diem