On the Contrary

Harvesting the Mourvedre

Vine: Well it is the end of another year.  The Syrah, Viognier, Grenache, and Counoise are gone, picked the week of 20^th September. The Mourvedre went on Sunday October 10, 2009.    The Syrah production was down about 30%.  I checked with a similar vineyard in my area and they were also down in Syrah.  But the production was up on the coast so go figure.  I don’t think it is anything I am doing here.  The Grenache was about the same as well as the Mourvedre.  On the quality side, I think all varietals had excellent quality with good flavors and ripe, mild tannins.

By the way, the picture is of the kite-birds I use to try to keep real birds out of the vineyard.  I would say they have taken about 15% of the crop especially in the Mourvedre since it is the last thing hanging and they can focus all their efforts on them.  I know that many vineyards in Napa use nets, but their land is flatter, and somehow I fear seeing myself tangled up in a net and left for days in my vineyard, which is not a far stretch since I was trapped down there last week after I fell and tore my patella tendon.

This year the major work has been to replant about 15 Grenache and 4 Viognier.  I also put in a separate irrigation system for the Viognier because they seem to need more water that the Syrah.  I did only two rounds of irrigation except for the new plants this year.  Next year I need to replace a couple of Mourvedre and about 10 more Grenache.  I have some erosion repair to do before the rains and spread some seed on the bare spots (See Blog: If you Think We Pay Too Much in Taxes).  Gophers have not been as active in the vineyard, although I did see a hawk attack one of my kites-birds, so maybe the hawks are helping.

Kite-Birds

I will put down some super phosphate (this soil is really deficient in phosphate), about one pound per plant (yep, 1500#s) before the rains start to let it get washed in over the winter.  Other than that things are about done.  After the Mourvedre harvest last Sunday, it is time to just watch the leaves turn and enjoy the last of the warm fall days with a nice Rhone in my hand, maybe a leg of lamb dinner to celebrate the end of harvest.  Good thing too, because if you read about my fall in the vineyard, I am restricted to the house and crutches for the next month or two.

Wine: The grapes are crushed and fermenting.  For the two wineries I sell my grapes to, they have different approaches to crushing and processing the grapes.  At Holly’s Hill, the process is fairly typical in that the grapes were delivered directly to the winery and mechanically de-stemmed and crushed.  Crushing is a relative term and the idea is to break the skin for free run of juice, but nothing more violent that might extract too many tannins.  Usually the crush is stabilized over night and any adjustments to acid and sulfur (to prevent contamination) are made, and then yeast is added along with some nutrients for fermentation.  Fermentation will occur in open fiberglass containers and depending on temperature will take about 1-2 weeks.  Punch down is usually done three times a day by hand.

Gimp Boy - Working in the Vineyard can be Dangerous

When fermentation is complete, the must will then be pressed to squeeze out all the juices, remove the seeds and skins, and will be racked off to usually large neutral oak barrels for aging with a minimum of racking to extract flavors from the lees. Blending will occur later (my Mourvedre usually goes in the their Classique which is a blend of four vineyards).  Mourvedre is typically aged about 11-12 months before it is bottled.

Donkey and a Goat takes a little different approach.  Their grapes are hand sorted, (I personally think those little spiders and twigs add flavor), machine de-stemmed, and then they are crushed by foot stomping (pigeage à pied).  This method is not just a throwback to un-mechanized times.  Some of the best wineries around the world still use this method because the extraction of tannins and other phenolics is perceived to be gentler and more natural.  Donkey and a Goat used only the natural yeasts that were in the vineyard to begin with and they ferment in neutral oak vats (no plastic).  For the Four-Thirteen that my Syrah, Grenache, and Counoise go into, last year the Grenache, Counoise, and the Mourvedre were co-fermented with the Syrah blended later.  The must is punched down about 3-times a day by hand and then aged about a year in neutral oak until bottling,

Both wineries produce a distinctive and lovely wine and you need to taste them so you can decide for yourself which style you prefer.  Or if you are like me, what is the appropriate occasion because both are delicious.

Carpe Diem

Sorry for the break in my mindless ramblings. Once again I am in Burlingame working on a proposal. They did harvest the Syrah (with the Viognier) on Wednesday and it looks like the Grenache with the Counoise will go on Saturday. That leaves the Mourvedre and it still needs some hang time so that will be probably mid to late October. Production was down this year and I am trying to figure out whether it is my irrigation scheme or if this is just symptomatic of this growing season. For those of you who said they would vote for me, Jared and Alice, I am not crazy. One last quick thought before I get back to work: Last night was “happy hour” at the Hog Island Oyster Bar ($1/Oyster). I didn’t think I could eat 2 dozen, but I was wrong. One other suggestion. If you go to a wine bar and you can tell the staff just loves wine, ask them to pour you a glass of what they think is really interesting. I had a wonderful Sangivoese/Grenache blend last night.

The Mourvedre is the Block with the Changing Leaves

Vine: Well its over for another year.  The Mourvedre was picked last Saturday, and the pictures tell the whole story. This year it looks like I harvested about 4.9 tons, down from 5.2 tons last year.  I actually increased the Syrah production, but both the Mourvedre and Grenache were down, the Mourvedre down almost .5 tons.  I will have to look at the pictures from last year, but I don’t get it.  Maybe the numbers were off last year.  This is a beautiful time in the vineyard and as you can see from the picture the Mourvedre has already change color and will soon be dropping its leaves.  Meanwhile the Grenache and to a less extent the Syrah is staying green.  I think much of this is that we have not had any freezing weather yet and instead is in the 80’s every day.  Global warming anyone?

The Harvest

In a way, and I know this is a little strange, but I miss my grapes.  You spend seven months, pruning, weeding, watering, thinning, training, managing canopy, dropping fruit, and then finally when they are truly beautiful, they are gone.  Kind of like children.  But unlike children, there will be a new batch next year (unless they come through with some grandchildren and that does not look promising).  I did enjoy savoring their flavor with each walk through the vineyard, and watching them reach the peak of their maturity.  Now all I can do is enjoy the color and watch the leaves fall.  Everything but the Mourvedre is crushed, fermented, pressed, and stored away in oak barrels.  The Mourvedre is fermenting as we speak, and is about a week away from its rest in neutral oak.  So with all that said I won’t be saying much more about the vineyard this year until spring when we start again.

Fall Bounty

Wine: The pictures pretty much tell the story of the harvest and their beginning trip to Holly’s Hill Classique Mourvedre, but I will give you a layman’s tour.  The grapes are picked into half ton wood containers.  They were picked by 9 a.m. and trucked (after weighing) directly to the winery with crushing starting at 10 a.m.  The grapes are destemmed and lightly crushed (not pressed, just breaking the skins) with a rubber drum.  They are then (juice, skins, seeds) pumped into another half ton container (continuous process) where they will be inoculated with about 50 parts per million of sulfites to prevent unwanted yeasts and bacteria and then they will be  rested over night.

Josh Delivering the Grapes to the Crusher/Destemmer

In the morning, Carrie or Josh will test the brix, TA, and pH, adjust acid if warranted, and then add the yeast for fermentation.  Now this is somewhat of an over simplification, but that is the general process.  They may add an enhancer to kickstart the fermentation (just high-octane food to get them going).  Adjusting acid is always tricky because many of us have high TA and high pH.  Think of it this way:  You are trying to establish the very best environment to ferment your wine, prevent infections of bad things, extracting all the wonderful flavors, and getting the right balance of flavors, tannins, acid, and alcohol in the final wine.  This means a balance in the chemistry in the must.  I won’t bore you with the numbers, but the adjustments are to create that perfect chemistry if

Carrie Adding Sulfites, Isa, Marin, and Carrie's Father Tom Cooper - Its a Family Affair - Holly, Carrie's Mother was busy Tending Esme

possible.  As a grower you are always hoping your grapes come in with the magic numbers, but they rarely do so it is left to the magic of the vintners.  But it gets tricky.  For the situation where the TA and the pH are both high, adding acid will lower the pH to the appropriate levels, but raises the TA to levels higher than are optimal.  Some vintners cold soak their wine later in the process to hopefully drop TA crystals out of the wine.  Some just live with it and add a flittle more sulfite to protect a low pH wine from infection.  Okay enough already.

Red wines ferment on their skins (to extract tannins and color) and their seeds.  When the process is complete, Carrie will taste to see if during the fermentation process they have extracted enough tannins, and if not leave them in their macerated state to extract a little more and then they will be pressed off (juices extracted leaving behind the seeds and skins) and then possibly have their sulfite levels adjusted to prevent unwanted infections

Let's not Forget Ron who Planted my Grapes, Advises me Every Step of the Way, Harvests them, and Gets them to the Winery

in the new wine and then its off to neutral oak for about 9 – 12 months.  Once again, a gross oversimplification, but you get the drift.  I will leave the pictures to tell the tale, but note that the whole family works in this process and it is hard work.  But up in the tasting room  is the fruit and bounty of their labors which Ron Mansfield and I did excused ourselves to after delivering my babies and watching them start their journey to fine wine.  Carpe Diem.

Vine/Wine Friday

Fall Rain on Saturday

Vine:   Fall has arrived with some good soaking rains starting late this Friday afternoon.  The Grenache was harvested in the early morning Friday so no problem there.  The Mourvedre is still hanging, but this grape is fairly resistant to any damage by rain such as powdery mildew.  Last year it went through three rounds of rains before we harvested with no damage.  But every year brings new surprises so we will see.

Grenache: The're Gone

As I noted, I was in the Bay Area trying to make a few dollars to support my grape habit so I missed the harvest, but it was about a ton which is commensurate with what I harvested last year.  I measured the Brix Thursday morning before I left town and it was at about 26° which is about right.  I will be interested to see what the winery measures to see how close I am to predicting the delivered brix (it helps the wineries if I can give them a weekly update so they know when we are getting close).  I haven’t yet measured the Mourvedre brix yet but both the Mourvedre and Grenache, unlike last year, ripened much more quickly than I anticipated.  When the Grenache was picked, both the seeds and skins were quite tasty, crunchy, and no hint of bitter tannins.  I think this is going to be an exceptional year, but we will see what A Donkey and Goat think.

Wine:   Okay, I promised a little discussion of wine making styles and here is what my Syrah and Grenache at a Donkey and Goat are being subject to:

The key to Tracey and Jared’s approach is to treat the grapes as gently as possible, do as little as possible to them (let them reflect their terroir), and utilized practices of some of the great wine makers in France (and some in the U.S.) that have developed over hundreds of years.  They begin by a careful selection of the vineyards they want to utilize, vineyards that show distinctive flavors and reflect their terroir (I am quite happy to have them utilize my grapes).  Jared usually is the traveler that goes to each vineyard and samples the grapes till he feels they are ready.  When they are harvested (usually early in the morning when it is cool), they are harvested into small bins to minimize any damage or premature crushing of the grapes.  Since their processing facility (and tasting room) is in Berkeley they are immediately transport in an enclosed truck.  If the weather temperature is above 65° then they refrigerate in transit.  This prevents any wild yeasts from starting fermentation in any exposed juice until they can carefully control it.  Depending on the work schedule, grapes maybe refrigerated up to 24 hours before processing but are usually processed as soon as they arrive.

When the grapes arrive in the processing facility, they are sorted, removing any extraneous material, bird damaged grapes, or those showing signs of boytrytis (powdry mildew) or any other decease, and then destemmed without crushing.  They leave between 10% to 30% with stems on (depending on the type of grape) for fermentation. The normal process is to destem and crush in one operation, but the Brandt’s strongly believe that the age-old process of foot stomping (their sanitary procedures would shame the early French) extracts the juices without over extracting the tannins and some other unwanted flavoids.  After sorting and destemming the grapes are transferred to a wood 500 Liter puncheon (big wood barrel) for crushing (foot stomping).  The juices are tested to for Brix (sugar content), TA (Titratable Acids or Total Acid), PH, and the Malic and Tartaric content.  Acids in wine is a whole blog and I will save it for another time when you are so bored you might actually read it.  PH is usually the driver here and unless the juice is extremely out of balance, the Brandt’s prefer not to adjust acid.  At this point they make a decision based upon the quality of the grapes as to how much SO2 to add.  If they are in very good shape, they will add none.  If there is some damage or other conditions that could result in some unwanted yeast/bacteria’s they will add up to 10 PPM.  Note that most wineries add much more than this, up to a limit of about 100PPM).  PH also has an impact on the effectiveness of SO2 and again that is a subject for another day.  Then the grapes are then transferred to cold storage (to prevent fermentation) usually for 48 hours at 50° F.  This cold soaking allows the juices to gently absorb more of the flavoids from the skins, seeds, and remaining stems, and to allow the entire mix to stabilize prior to fermentation.  When this process is complete they record the final Brix, TA,  and PH.

The grapes/juice are removed from cold storage and allowed to naturally warm and at about 65° they start naturally fermenting.  Fermentation is carried out in the wood puncheons (to extract the delicate tannins of the wood, better control of cap formation and punch down, and permeability of oxygen).  Nothing is added to the juices and the grapes ferment on their own natural yeasts.  Fermentation usually starts after about 3 – 5 days after they are removed from cold storage and fermentation can take anywhere from 5 days to many, many weeks.  After fermentation is complete they lightly press the grapes to extract the juices and remove the skins, seeds, and stems, and add nothing so that malo-latic fermentation can take place over the winter or in the Spring depending on temperatures.  The new wine is transferred to either French oak barrels or French oak puncheons (they prefer Rousseau and Franciois Freres barrel makers) with an average age of 3 years to not over oak their wines.  In future Vine/Wine Fridays I will expand on what happens in the winery for the next two years as the wine ages and matures.

Okay so much for their wine making style.  To get the whole picture I strongly advise you to try the wines so you can appreciate what they creating with this sophisticated process.   I would suggest their classic Three-Thirteen. Three-Thirteen and a nice loin lamb chop.

Saturday Night's Fare - It's Not Hard to Cook Well

Speaking of food.  This was last Saturday’s dinner which was simple to prepare and far exceeds most restaurants at about one-third the cost.  This consisted of a mesquite grilled fillet mignon, sautéed mushrooms (olive oil and wine) garlic mashed potatoes, heirloom tomatoes and green peppers on a bed of argula Carpe Diem, a fresh loaf of fococcia with lemon olive oil, and a nice bottle of Miraflores Syrah.  At least once a week we all need to slow down, cook a wonderful meal, and enjoy it with the people you love.  It is what all the rest is about.  Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem

Vine:  Harvest Begins!! Another warm week with average temperatures in the 90’s has fully ripened the Syrah and they were picked today.  It is going to cool off into the low 80’s starting today.  You know they are going to harvest when you see the bins and tractor parked in your vineyard the day before.

A Sure Sign Harvest will Begin in the Morning

Oh, you say, I thought you decided when to pick.  Hardly.  I can taste and measure the brix and tell you when they are close, but the winery makes the decision when they should be delivered to the winery for processing.  This is as it should be.  We growers work hard to bring the fruit to top quality, but the flavors in the fruit change daily at this stage and it is left to the refined palates of the wine makers to decide when the flavors that they are looking for have fully developed.

The harvesting process is fairly straightforward.  The vineyard workers (los hombres) simply go through and cut it bunch by bunch, leaving any damaged bunches or any secondary growth and drop the bunches into buckets.

Steep Slopes and Hard Work - Viva Los Hombres

The buckets are then gently (to prevent damage to the bunches) poured into the bins.  The bins are then transferred to the winery. The harvest and transfer started at about 0545 am and take place in the early morning hours (it takes about 3 hours to havest the Syrah) to keep the grapes cool and to prevent any unwanted fermentation in the grapes from alien yeasts.  These grapes are going to A Donkey and Goat in Berkley, there to be cold soaked for 24 hours, sorted, foot stomped and then fermented in large oak casks.  More about different styles in the winery next week.  It looks like about 2.5 tons, but we will see when I get the weights and numbers from the winery.

I will dump the water to the Syrah now to give them a good drink and a nice rest after working so hard this year.  I really withheld the water until absolutely necessary and we will see what Jared and Tracey from Donkey and Goat think about the quality.

Upper Vineyard Bounty Mixed with the Viognier

I measured about 26° to 27° Brix the day before with a nice fruit, and complex flavors with very nutty seeds and mild skins.  The rest of the vineyard, the Grenache, the Mourvedre, and the Counoise, is sitting at about 22°-23°.  The primary difference is that the Grenache is moving faster on its tannins with the skins only slightly bitter and the seeds browning nicely.  The Mourvedre is still very green in its tannins.  Hello mid-October.

Wine:  Well, last weekend was Tour de Wine up here and it was a lot of fun.  Each winery served food and gave tours/presentations in their barrel rooms and vineyards.  There were 20 wineries involved, for a two-day event, but I was going to spend some quality time at my favorites and I had house guests (Rhyans) who I was cooking for that night, so we went to four and spent quality time.  It is fun when every winery you go to, they know your name (oh no, Steve again!).  Holly’s Hill is always fun and it is great to see the Coopers (owners) and Josh and Carrie (wine makers), and they make first quality Rhones.  They were giving people a chance to do some pressing and taste the juice, and cooking delicious Carne Asada Tacos that went well with the Patriarche Blanc (Roussanne-Viognier blend) and taste some wonderful local olive oil (Winter Hill)

Tomorrow the Journey Begins from Quality Grape to Fine Wine

From there we went to what I think is one of the best up and coming wineries in the area, Miraflores.  They had a wonderful selection of cheeses and small sandwiches, with barrel tasting of last year’s wines.  Victor Alvarez, who is the owner, was there and his passion for his wine was expressed in his willingness to share some of his not yet released wines that he is so proud of, and rightly so.  He has a passion for the terroir and it is expressed in his wine.  I love his Syrahs because they have a vegetative or earthy flavor, sometimes called forest floor.  The 2003 Syrah and the 2005 Methode Ancienne are real treats.

Next up was Narrow Gate Winery which makes delicious Rhones.  Frank and Teena Hildebrand are owners and Frank does all the wine making.  Frank was giving a wonderful presentation on his wine making philosophy and technique.  Frank does whole grape fermentation and focuses on a gentle process of extracting the juices without (he says ) extracting too many tannins.  If you listen to the technique, you would think the wine would lack the complexity of well balance tannins, but you would be wrong.  It was an interesting approach to wine making, and his wines speak for themselves.  You have to try his Rhone blend, Dunimas.

Lower Vineyard Bountry/Sophie Supervising

Finally there was a stop at Madroña and sure enough there was Paul Bush working the tasting.  Paul is making the wine and managing the vineyards.  He is a delightful person to talk to and he loves to share his wines with you.  The Malbec was killer.  We got there after the event was officially over, but that did not slow down Paul.  All of these wineries are making exceptional wines and you cannot beat the value for the quality.  His reserve Syrah is a true delight.

Then it was back to ‘Chateau Lightner’ to sit on the patio and sip a hearty Petite Syrah and cheese while I cooked filet mignon in a heavy wine sauce (garlic, shallots, mustard, heavy cream, and of course red wine, reduced) with haricots verts (sautéed fresh green beans with shallots and lemon) with a nice Patriarche (Holly’s Hill Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre).  Yes it was too much food, too much wine, and I dragged myself around all day Sunday, but worth every minute.  Life is short, seize the day…Carpe Diem.

Nine Bins Total - About 2.5 Tons of Syrah - Ready for Their Journey