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

Vine: Veraison is about complete now in the vineyard with most of the grapes looking purple.  I checked out the Tablas Creek web site and they indicated that there is about 6-weeks from veraison to when they harvest.  It is probably more like 8-weeks up here so that would put me around the first of October.  It was also good to note that they thought the harvest was about 2-weeks behind the last two years, but the production is up.  That is what I am finding up here.  Many of my vines are second generation cuttings of Tablas Creek cuttings (Mourvedre, Viognier, Counoise) and most of their cuttings came from Chateau Beaucastel.

Work in the vineyard is really very little.  I am trying to get a crew up here to help me thin the fruit and remove secondary growth.  I just started a second round of irrigation and this will take about 3 weeks.  I drip for about 96 hours in each block to ensure that the saturation zone is down to 4’.  One problem I have is that I always think I need to water more than one block at a time, but my water pressure won’t support that.  This is probably a good thing because I end up holding back more water than I would normally and the plants appear to do fine.  I expect to see A Donkey and Goat (Jared Brandt) up here around the first of September to check on the grapes (Grenache, Syrah, Counoise, Viognier) and get a feel for quantity, quality, and timing for harvest.  Holly’s Hill (who buys my Mourvedre) will probably not be up here until late September because the Mourvedre is always late.  As always, once the brix gets above about 22° I start sending them weekly updates (I’ll explain about brix in a later blog).

I have included some of my pictures of roses at the end of the rows.  I planted them a couple of years ago and they are a beautiful addition to the vineyard.  I put them on a separate watering system, but the vine right next to them is piggy backing on the more frequent watering and so the growth is prodigious.  Not a route to quality grapes, but one plant at the end of each row is a nice tradeoff for the beauty the roses provide.

Wine: There is always the debate about screw tops versus corks and as I have stated before, I think I have a bias toward corks simply because of the tradition.  Screw tops have the ability to truly prevent any oxygen entering the wine which for some, will keep the fruits very fresh.  On the other hand many reds require this slow micro oxygenation to mellow the tannins.  I was reading from the Tablas Creek web site where they did some taste tests.  Jason Haas of Tablas creek commented:

“Overall, the results tended to validate the choices that we’d made, as the whites and rosé tasted brighter and fresher under screwcap (and were generally preferred by the group) while the reds tended to taste softer and lusher under cork (and were generally, though not universally, preferred by the group).  I made sure I wasn’t involved in pouring the wines so I could approach the tasting truly blind.”

“Looking back through the notes, I see a few threads that are consistent.  The cork, on the positive side, seems to add darker tones to the wine, give a sense of sweetness, and lengthen the finish.  On the negative side, the whites and Rosé under cork all betrayed a hint of oxidation.  Granted, none of these were meant to aged long-term, but there was a heaviness in the cork version that there was not in the screwcap.  The screwcap, on the positive side, maintained a brightness and freshness in everything.  On the negative, it tended to shorten the finish and make (keep?) a wine less complex, and a few of the wines under screwcap betrayed a plastic character that I didn’t find appealing.”

The answer here like all things in life, is there is no simple answer.  For some wines screwtops are the right choice and most probably for the deep complex reds I love, it is a mistake.  So much for arcane thinking about wine.

Carpe Diem

Vine: It’s hot, damn hot.  We have had a string of hot stifling days, which is my cue to stay out of the vineyard.  Although the nights still cool down to the 60s, I would like to see a little more even weather (highs in the low 90s and dropping down into the 50s at night).  It slows the grapes down and allows the flavors to develop more fully.  Of course the other argument is that since we had such a cool June (I read an article that the tomatoes out here are a month behind), this weather is letting the grapes catch up.  My own uneducated view on this is that I would prefer more even weather patterns with a very long ripening season, but Mother Nature is not one for moderation.

I get asked a lot how my grapes are doing and the reality is I haven’t a clue.  It is true that we have good leaf development, lots of clusters that will require some fruit to be dropped in August, but as far as how the grapes are developing in terms of flavors, I just don’t know.  And I won’t know till about mid-September.  Verasion (turning red for the red grapes) has not occurred yet.  I did start a round of watering in mid July (about two weeks later than last year).  Based on that, I would say everything looks about two weeks late, but a lot can happen between now and October.

As far as work in the vineyard goes, I haven’t done much.  I did replace about 16 plants, mostly Grenache, but a few Viognier.  I put in a separate drip line for the new plants since they will require more frequent watering than the existing vines.  I also installed a separate watering system for my Viognier.  The Viognier are planted in the upper vineyard with the Syrah, but in an area that does not hold as much moisture and I am seeing if some additional water will facilitate more hardy growth.  Soon I will start some thinning of the leaf cover around the grapes.  This involves pulling off some of the heavy foliage around the grape clusters.  Most vineyards do some cover management.  The idea is to get a balance of leaf growth to grape bunch growth.  You want enough leaf growth to support growth of the grapes, but not too heavy so the plant is supporting leaf development over grapes.  I am always guessing.

Wine: Apparently Mourvedres are finally being discovered by the drinking masses.  The Food and Wine section of last Sundays Chronicle had an article on how California was discovering them.  Of the 800 or so acres in production here in California, one is mine.  For those unfamiliar with the wine, here is their description which I think is fairly accurate:

“These are typically hearty, well-structured wines, with deep red fruit flavors and a leathery edge. They bring the power and fruit of Zinfandel but add extra depth. And yet the flavors can be hard to nail down – brighter berry notes at times, darker hues at others. Trademark leathery, animal nuances can step forward, providing a signature; other times they lurk quietly. It is a difficult grape to comprehend, much less embrace.”

Mourvedre grows quite well up here with our cooler growing season.  It was interesting to note that the first two wines recommended were the 2007 David Girard Vineyard Estates Mourvedre, and the 2007 Donkey and Goat’s Prospector, both El Dorado County grown Mourvedres (vineyard manager Ron Mansfield).  Ron is the one who convinced me to plant my Mourvedres.  I have tasted both and they are quite good.  My claim to fame is that the Holly’s Hill 2007 Mourvedre Classique won a silver medal at the State Fair and has my Mourvedre in it.

For a food recommendation, my daughter was up here last weekend during the hot weather so for lunch I fixed a very simple Vietnamese chicken salad, but I substituted shrimp instead of chicken.  The salad uses Napa cabbage, cilantro, and green onions.  The dressing is peanut oil, fresh limejuice, fish sauce, and a little sugar.  The shrimp you peel and devein, coat in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast in the oven for about 4 minutes.  Then you just combine all the ingredients, sprinkle on some peanuts, and serve with a chilled Viognier.  It was light, refreshing, and just the thing for a hot summer day.  Carpe Diem.

Note the recipe (sans the shrimp) is from William-Sonoma’s Simple Suppers.

Vine: Sorry for the lateness of this, but there has been just too much to do.  I finish the first round of spraying and I do not recommend my approach.  I am spraying Sulfur DF, and Ralley® with an emulsifier to control powdery mildew.  I have never had any up here, but the conditions are ripe with the cool moist days this June so I usually do 2-rounds of spraying.  Now the reason I say I don’t recommend this approach is that I do it by hand.  See the picture on the left.  I have a 25 gallon spray rig that I pull behind my ATV.  I then walk through reach row and spray both sides of the plants by hand with a hand wand.  For my small vineyard this is a two-day process.  For a young man, he could do it in one day, but I find that if I don’t want to have leg cramps, I will break it up into two days.  Note the Tyvek suit, goggles, gloves, and mask.  I do look quite fetching don’t I?  It can get quite hot out there.  The normal way to do this, which would just take a couple of hours would be to use a tractor with a fogging spay unit.  But the financial investment is about $30 grand and so I make due with what I have.

The second task I finally got done with some help from Ron Mansfield’s crew is the pushing of all the shoots in the Syrah up through the wires, positioning them so they are not falling horizontal, and thinning some of the new growth since the last thinning.  This seems like a simple task, but it can become quite arduous and time consuming positioning the shoots and trying not to break any.  Remember that I told you that for the Syrah, you want about 5-6 spurs on each side of the cardon (either side of T shape of the plant.  The cardon is the horizontal piece of the T.  The vertical piece is the trunk).  From those 5-6 spurs you want two strong, fruit bearing shoots.  The problem is you will get many shoots from many locations that are not optimal.  So you have to go through each plant and thin it down to two well position shoots and then push them up through the wires so the stay fairly vertical and allow your grapes to be open to sunlight and not crowded out by other shoots.  In the process you will get some locations that are not ideal, but is your only choice.  In others locations you may get a shoot that is perfectly situated but does not have fruit.  So it is a balancing act where, unlike financial markets, you try to think long term.  The idea is not to maximize to production this year, but to shape a plant so that in a few years, it is perfectly pruned to produce healthy and well-positioned shoots for many years.  The two pictures I have included show the before and after of a second round of pushing the shoots up through the wires and additional thinning.

At this point, the big work in the vineyard is done.  I will still have to do another round of spraying either next weekend or the following week, but things are pretty much under control now and with most of the shoots now position in the wires (and the Mourvedre and Grenache thinned-same concept of two shoots per spur, but head trained plants (no wires)).  The only real tasks now since the plant can’t out grow my efforts are to thin as the plant grows (cover) and do some positioning on the wires as they grow more slowly.  In other words, the big push is over.  I still don’t know how the set went and will check in about another week to see what grapes were pollinated and growing (set).  I was down at Holly’s Hill which is about 500’ lower in elevation than my vineyard and the set was quite apparent.  I would say my vineyard is about two weeks behind them.

Wine: I had a delightful wine tasting experience this weekend.  All of you wine lovers enjoy wine tasting, but the real learning occurs when you are in the company of other trained palates who will give you their opinions, and especially if you can do flight tasting so you can compare wines side-by-side.  Holly’s Hill, which grows Rhone varietals and buys my Mourvedre, had their annual Holly’s Hill versus the Rhone Valley taste-off.  What they do is a blind tasting with eight wines in two 4-glass flights.  All you know is that you are going to get six southern Rhones and two Holly’s Hill Rhones (Patriache 2005 & 2006). Note Southern Rhones are blends usually of Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre, but they can have other Southern Rhone reds blended in smaller quantities.   But you don’t who is who.  So they pour the first four glasses from bottles that are hidden in a paper bag and you are given about twenty minutes to swirl, sniff, and taste, record your findings and discuss with your tablemates.  Then you rank them one through four.  Then the whole gathering gives their comments and we vote for the 1-4 ratings.  Just as an aside, this is not easy because French wines are very complex and tend to really change in your glass so that a first impression is usually a throwaway.  Then we repeat the process for the second flight of four and then you rank all of them, one through eight, attempting to identify which are French and which are the Holly’s Hill.  Finally you find out what each wine is, its cost, and how it was rated by professionals (Robert Parker and others) to see how your rankings matched up.  Josh and Carrie (wine makers at Holly’s Hill) also give you their impressions and their rankings.

When Ron Mansfield and I arrived (Ron is my vineyard consultant and world renowned (no, I am not kidding) grower up here (we were running late because I was late out of the vineyard), the couple we sat with last year had noted we were coming and save us seats.  Now that in it self was a good omen because they have great palates, have traveled extensively in France, and they valued our tasting judgments.  I’ll just ignore that Ron’s palate is way better than mine and I also was a valued team member.  To make a long story short, my one and two picks were the groups two and one pick and my first choice was a 2006 Clos Des Papes ($110) rated 98 by Parker.  My second was the 2006 Patriarche which I would have bet my life was French.  This one has not been rated yet but rumor is Parker did rate it and we are waiting for the results.  So all in all, it was nice to know my palate is still working and the other lesson is that you usually get what you pay for when you buy wines.

I had 24 fresh pacific oysters on ice in my truck, so Ron and I drove over to our friends the Wards, who love oysters and have treated us to them many times, shucked and ate them with French bread and a nice Holly’s Hill Roussanne.  All in all, as Mike would say, it was a good day to be alive.  Carpe Diem.

Vine:   Okay, work in the vineyard continues.  Right now it is boring work raking up the piles of pruning debris and hauling them down to the burn area.  The picture on the left is the raking results with the piles waiting for pickup.  At the bottom of the hill you can see the debris that has been moved down from the upper vineyard waiting to be burned.  Note that you can click on the picture to get a full sized picture.  My old back is getting tired of this.  I have found some erosion damage and will be repairing in the next couple of weeks. Generally most of this damage is due to gophers digging holes that the runoff water fills and washes out, hence the reason for continuous gopher patrol.  I will fill the washed out areas with rocks and then dirt to prevent them from washing out again next year which of course they will as the gophers continue their terrorist activities.

I have also included a picture of pruning on the trellis system and here is how it goes:  This year’s new wood (the shoots that spring from the buds from last years new wood) are what produce the grapes.  Grapes generally only grow on new wood.  So the picture that you are seeing is a pre-pruning picture where you see the two shoots from last year growing (last years new wood) from a spur (6-spurs on each cardon (horizontal part of T) on each side of the main trunk (vertical part of T).  Last year these two shoots produced the grapes for the wine.  Pruning will cut one shoot completely off, and pick the other shoot that has the best positioned buds and health, and cut it back to two bud length.  This becomes part of the spur and the two buds will push the new shoots (this years wood) that will produce the grapes.  Note that on the picture on the right you can see the buds as white pimples. Typically these buds will produce more than two shoots and later you have to thin to the two shoot configuration.  Two shoots per spur and 6 spurs on each side of the T (each cardon) is a good balance for this plant in this soil.  Note that each shoot will produce multiple grape bunches and these will be later thinned to two (depending on size of shoot to support) grape clusters.  See the vineyard pictures for how this was done last year (Vineyard).  Okay so much for vineyard 101.  On to the fun side, the product.

Wine: This last weekend was a biggie.  Saturday we had committed to help my friends the Wards with a charity dinner they had sold at auction to help the local theater group.  It was a seven course affair mostly prepared by Fran and Mike with Steve and Candace doing prep, general cooking, serving, and cleanup.  The Bush’s (Paul and Maggie) from Madroña Winery worked with us to pair wines for each course during a practice dinner several weeks ago and to pour and explain each wine (cook the Bread Pudding and help in every other way).  The pairings were excellent and we must have tried at least 10 different and distinct wines.  My favorite was the Madroña Reserve Malbec.  The meal included:

- Grilled Ahi with Ginger Black Bean Sauce on Asian Coleslaw – 2007 Dry Riesling ~ 2005 Reserve Syrah
- Leek Salad with Creamy Tarragon and Garlic Dressing – 2007 Reserve Chardonnay
- Deep Fried Quail in Ale Batter, Pear Apple, or Apricot Chutney – 2006 Zinfandel
- Intermezzo of Honey Dew Melon – 2007 Fiore
- Short Ribs in Cabernet Sauvignon, Green Beans and Shredded Almonds, Garlic Mashed Yukon Gold/Purple Potatoes – 2006 Malbec
- Fromage and Fruit Plate (Midnight Moon and Petite Basque) – 2003 Enye Syrah
- Traditonal Bread Pudding with Warm Whiskey Sauce – 1993 Select Harvest Riesling

Sunday we were up and traveling to San Francisco for the annual Rhone Rangers Grand Tasting at Fort Mason (on the water).  Rhone Rangers is an organization dedicated to the growers and wine makers of Rhone varietals.  Their Grand Tasting in San Francisco each year is to showcase what is being accomplished throughout California (and some in Oregon and Washington) locations to further the quality and enjoyment of Rhone varietals.  There were roughly 142 wineries represented with 36 food purveyors.

Obviously, one cannot taste everything so my plan this year was to stick with Red Rhone blends.  I wasn’t very successful, but I did a lot of spitting.  We usually go in with the Trade for two hours of tasting before the general public is admitted so that we can spend a little time with each winery.  Once the crowd descends, it is best to get your taste of wine and then move back from the tasting area to let others have a chance.  Some people never get this, and they try to hog the wine and the conversation while others wait.

My general impression was that this was a very good year.  Even with the economy in the dumpster, the wineries were well represented and the place was packed with happy tasters.  The quality continues to notch up each year so what I tasted had to be a limited selection and to reflect my own special interests.  So here are my favorites, and I tried to stay away from wineries I know so they are omitted:

Rhone Blends:
2006 Le Mistral – Le Mistral Winery Syrah, Grenache and Alicante Bouschet
2006 Brat – Prospect 772 Wine Company, Syrah, Grenache

Syrahs
IO Wines – 2005 Upper Bench, Ryan Road, and Rhone Red Classic.  All their Syrahs were complex and tasty, even meaty
Cedarville – 2006 Estate Syrah
Novy Family Wines– 2006 Syrahs, all are excellent and Novy continues to hit the mark
Prospect 772 – 2006 Syrah
Martinelli Winery – 2005 Terra Felice

Varietals:
Cedarville Winery – 2007 Grenache
Morgan Winery – 2007 Grenache
Frick Winery – 2006 Cinsault, 2005 Carignane, 2006 Grenache Blanc Note: I had never tasted any of these other than in blended wines and it was a treat.  Thank you Mr. Frick

Edmunds St. John – Heart of Gold, a 54% Grenache Blanc, 46% Vermentino blend, a truly distinct and refreshing white.

There were many others that I did not mention which included Holly’s Hill, Terre Rouge, and David Girard which are right up there with the best because I was trying to branch out and not taste my known favorites.  I would have tasted at Tablas Creek since they really started the Rhones in California and many of my varietals are clones of their vines, but there is always a gaggle of people there and I refuse to be a groupie.  Sadly A Donkey and Goat was not there.  Small wineries in this market have to pick their marketing opportunities carefully.  I did run into Tracy Brandt (Jared was home baby sitting), joint owner/wine maker and she gave me some great tasting tips.

For food, it was a bonanza for chocolate lovers.  Best chocolate came from Belgique Truffle Gateau and Clairesquares.  For other venues Sonoma-Artisan Foie Gras, Marcel Et Henri’s Pâté, and The Girl and the Fig’s cassoulet got honorable mention.

So after a hard day of wine tasting, we departed about 3 pm and hiked up (about 4 miles) to 2073 Market Street to the Woodhouse Fish Company for a Crab Louie, Fried Shrimp, Claim Chowder, a Calamari Sandwich, and a very cold beers. After all that wine, a great lager tasted quite refreshing.  It is a small place in a neat neighborhood with great seafood served casually.   Another perfect day.  Carpe Diem.

Vine: Ah, spring is here.  I can tell because when I get up in the morning every muscle in my body hurts.  No it is not the weather, but the work of pre-pruning and pruning debris clean up.  Each year usually I wait until after pruning and then rake up the shoots, some that are 16’-18’ long and then transport them to the burn area to burn.  If I were a real farmer I would have a tractor with a flail mower so I could just rake them to the center of each row and then cut them up.  But only having my trusty ATV, unable to find a tow behind flail mower (except in Britain and China, but that is a tale for another day), and a neat freak, I spend about a month on my most dreaded task in the vineyard, pruning debris clean up.   The picture I have included shows the upper vineyard, the beautiful ground cover, and the pre-pruning (debris cleaned up).

At any rate, our approach to pruning is to wait until bud break and then prune everything back to two buds on a spur.  By waiting later, it slows down bud break so you can give yourself a couple of weeks of insurance that you won’t get a frost that damages the tender new leaves. At my elevation (3000’) that is important.  But if you wait until late March or early April, the ground cover is in full growth and it is then hard to rake up the debris.  So I do a little pre-pruning by cutting back all the trellis vines to about 8” using a heavy duty gas hedger, cut and pull the shoots off the wires, so that when we do the final pruning it is a fairly straight forward affair without the delay of removing the tangled shoots from the wires.  So for the next week or two I will be doing that, tightening wires, and other fun stuff while we await bud break and the final pruning.  Once pruning starts I will show you the technique and try to explain the process.

Wine:  Last Sunday I went to Holly’s Hill for a pairing of oysters with their Patriarche Blanc (Viognier, Roussanne, Grenache Blanc), and Grenache with grilled chicken.  It was a delight.  Josh (of Josh and Carrie Bendick, wine makers) had gone to the Hog Island Oyster Bar in the Ferry Building in San Francisco to get fresh oysters and they were wonderful.  You got your choice of either grilled oyster in the shell with a dollop of butter and garlic, or raw with a delightful rice wine vinegar sauce.  Interestingly, if you ate the oysters raw (which I do) the Patriarche was a little flat in the finish, but when they were roasted with the butter and garlic it was a delightful bursting of flavors from the wine.   The Grenache went well with either and my cohort, Ron Mansfield (vineyard manager at Holly’s Hill and my vineyard consultant) and I just got a bottle of Grenache and it went well with everything.  Going to Holly’s Hill is always a pleasure because the whole family partakes in every event and they are a delight to know and talk to.  The staff in the tasting room are a gregarious bunch that makes every visit a pleasure.

This weekend is the Rhone Rangers Grand Tasting at Fort Mason in San Francisco.  There will be over a hundred wineries so a little planning is in order.  If you start at the A’s and taste everything you are not going to make it to the K’s.  I am still considering where I want my focus to be.  Last year I did the Syrahs and limited it to a few wineries.  I haven’t got a plan yet and my love for Syrahs may trip up my evolving plan to just taste Rhone Blends this year.  Candace is going with the Rhone Blend whites, and I will deviate to taste anything anyone suggests as special.  We will be spending Sunday night in the City and I haven’t decided where to eat yet.  We are considering something simple after the tasting like clam chowder and a beer.  Will report next week.  Carpe Diem.

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: Okay, the market is tanking, people are panicing, and I am in New York City at the Food Network Wine and Food Festival.  Somebody has to stimulate this economy.  Things in the vineyard are kind of in a holding pattern.  The only think left is the Mourvedre and it is sitting at about 26 degrees brix.  Josh and Carrie Bendick,  who are the wine makers at one of my favorite wineries making consistently wonderful wines, Holly’s Hill, were up here tasting this week, but I think they are still looking for a little more maturity in the tannins and they ought to know.  Since I am not at home, I have no idea what is happening, but I would assume the earliest we would do the final pick is late next week.  I’ll know more next week.

Wine: We had a wonderful salmon and grilled shrimp dinner last Saturday,  The most suprising thing was Ron Mansfield brought A Donkey and Goat Tamarindo which was a Roussanne that was dry and crisp and was just delightful with the salmon and the augula and summer snow peach salad (toasted pecans, no cheese).  I would spend more time on this dinner, but I want to give you updates from the Wine Festival so for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I will try to post on what I tasted and what is wonderful. Ignore doom and gloom and enjoy the moment while we have it.   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