Vine/Wine Friday
Candace's Flowers at 'Chateau Lightner'
Vine: Well finally I have gone through the last two rows in the upper block of Syrah and thinned the excess shoots and dropped quite a bit of fruit. With some time off from consulting and a laser enhancement on my right eye last week left me with some free time to get things tidied up in the Vineyard.
Roses at the End of Each Row
I also cut some shoots that were over running the roses and pruned them for another round of flowering. What does this have to do with growing great grapes? Nothing, it is just peace of mind. There is really very little to do now but let them ripen and wait for harvest. It will be about 100° today and then we will hit a cooling off period where the highs will be in the low 80s. This is the time of year when you want things to slow down so that the sugar can increase at a rate that allows the tannins to mature also without too much loss of acid. It is all up to Mother Nature now.
Speaking of Mother Nature, the hoards of birds are now gathering to feast upon my hard work. I put out my Kite-Birds this week in hopes that they will scare off the free loaders. I put four in the lower vineyard and one in the upper vineyard, strategically placed near the edge of the vineyard where the birds like to sit in the trees before making their foray into the smorgy board.
One of My Fearless Kite-Birds Protecting the Vineyard
Kite-Birds are a kites shaped like Ospreys tethered to a 20′ pole by about a 10’ string. When the wind blows, which is all afternoon up here, they fly much like the real thing, hovering over a possible meal on the ground. I have tried just about everything to keep the birds out of my vineyard except load noises and netting. I can’t imagine using netting on my steep slopes and have this image of myself tangled up in the netting and waiting for someone to come free me. If the Kite-Birds are not effective I may be forced to resort to loud noises although I don’t think that will work since the birds seem to be oblivious to my loud shouting of obscenities when they are feeding.
Anyway, if things continue to progress as they have been, I would expect to harvest the Syrah about mid-September. The Mourvedre and Grenache will probably not happen until October. I will start measuring (other than taste) sugars next week and start tracking the data next week.
Wine: Wineries have been busy bottling what they put up last year so that they will have capacity for the harvest that is going to start shortly. For those of you that have visions of owning a winery and sipping your wine while overlooking your vineyards, I would like to remind you of the hard work and constant attention that goes on every day. It is a 24/7 job and not quite as romantic as one would think. You have to love the life and the work. It is also very expensive and you must do most of your own marketing. As my friend Tom Cooper, owner of Holly’s Hill, once said, “If you want to be a millionaire in this business, start with about five million.” On the plus side, if you make fine wine’s like they do, eventually it starts to come together.
Last week Candace and I ate out several times because we were having our wood cabinets refinished. Up here where I live, eating out is always an adventure. My general rule of thumb is that I want something I can’t cook at home or if I could cook it at home, I couldn’t do it that well. So one evening we went to the Redbud Café down in Cameron Park. It has a good reputation and one of my friends raves about it. I found it disappointing. My friend is known there and I think she gets special attention that sets the tone for the meal. Now I am a snob about service. When we walked in the staff was very friendly, but there is something about “Hi, how are you guys tonight?” that sets my teeth on edge. I don’t like to be called “guys”. The menu was adequate with some good choices but what I had was only okay and I could have fixed it better at home. I think if you stuck with the simple stuff like a burger with frites you would have been happy. What really got me going was that I had ordered a beer before dinner to quench my thirst (the high point of the meal) and when my meal arrived, I asked for the wine list. Then our waitress got busy chatting up another couple and I was half way through my meal before she came back to enquire on what I might like to order. Candace had ordered a mushroom dish and a green salad. It turned out that the mushroom dish came with fresh greens. Shouldn’t the waitress have known that and advised her of that when she ordered her salad? That is fairly common up here where the wait staff is a little too folksy, too friendly, not that knowledgeable about the menu, and service suffers as a result. Anyway Redbud is off my list.
Saturday we were sitting around outside because everything in the house was tarped over, so we decided to go down to El Dorado Hills Town Center and maybe catch a movie and a light dinner. Well, after perusing the movie list, we decided on just getting dinner. My first choice was a Grill (I don’t remember the name), but the wait was about 45 minutes so we went to a little place called the Wine Konnection. We secured seating outside overlooking the little lake and fountain and proceeded to have just a wonderful dining experience. The waiter was extremely knowledgeable about the wine list and I had a flight of Pinots and Candace had a flight of Red Blends which of course we shared. We split a wonderful cheese and sliced heirloom tomato salad. Candace had a perfectly prepared Kobe steak and I had a vanilla braised beef short ribs. Both entrees were about $15, were perfectly prepared, and just delicious. I ordered a bottle on Novy Syrah and it was just perfect. So I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. If you want a folksy experience where everybody knows your name (but they aren’t paying attention to the details) Redbud is your choice. If you want exquisitely prepared food, where the waiter is spot on his knowleged of the menu and the wine list, the Wine Konnection is your choice. I will be returning there. Carpe Diem.