On the Contrary

Vine: Okay so it is now Sunday.  It’s like life.  I keep falling further behind, and finally the crowd has lapped me.  Oh well. We had a cold snap two weeks ago and then last week it was 90°.  That got things going.  Now it is cooling down again with highs only around 65°.  Everything is leafing out except the Mourvedre which are always the last to show their little green leaves.  I have detected some damage from the freeze, but primarily in the Viogneir.  I would say about 5%, but the next couple of weeks will be critical as these young leaves are very susceptible to frost damage.  It is remarkable to think that from these little buds will come shoots that grow to 15’ – 20’.

It is absolutely a gorgeous time in the vineyard.  As evidenced by the picture, the grass is beautifully green, red clover heads are everywhere, and the air is crystal clear and fresh.  It is truly a beautiful time.  It is a habit of mine to take a walk with my trusty friend Sophie through the vineyard and just experience, usually with a nice glass of wine in my hand.  When I am old and pretty much worn out, these are days I want to savor in my memory.  My Dad died in the spring in the hill country of Texas and I remember thinking of the sadness of my life without him, and then I saw the beauty of the rebirth of nature all around me and some how it was a great comfort.  We are all part of this great cycle even if we rarely take time to stop and savior it.

This is do nothing time in the vineyard even though I am itching to mow between the rows.  But I must restrain myself to let the clover and grass go to seed and dry out some so I will have a good crop next year.   Luckily I only have some pruning debris which has been raked into piles to pick up and burn, and assuming and I can get a break from my consulting treadmill, I will have that done this week.  Then I just wait and watch.  Even though it drives my vineyard advisor crazy, I will do some early thinning of the shoots.  Remember the rule of two shoots to a spur.  Well the plant can’t remember that rule so it will push out all kinds of jumble.  In the best of all worlds you would wait long past frost season and pick the two best positioned shoots and remove the rest when you are sure they are no longer susceptible to damage or breakage.  But what normally happens to me is that I get some project away from the vineyard and by the time I get back it is a jumbled mess and makes both thinning and pushing the shoots up through the wines a very difficult job.  So about mid-May, I will begin that task.  Other than that, there is not much to report, just very tranquil walks among my rows with a glass of wine and my trusty friend.

Wine:  Last Saturday I went to a venison dinner at the Ward’s.  Mike Ward loves to hunt and I love to eat what he shoots.  In this case it was venison prepared by Christian Masse, my favorite French chef.  He had two versions of venison tenderloin, garlic and pepper and two wonderful sauces.  There were clams and muscles, great cheeses, artichokes, roasted potatoes, fruit, smoked salmon; oh I could go on and on.  But the wine was spectacular.  I may have had too much to drink, which is a lot of wine, but I just could not help myself.  There were three in particular that I want to note.  The first I brought and it was a 2006 Yangarra Cadenzia (Rhone blend Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre).  I had tasted their wines before (Australian) and they produce a very good and reasonably priced wine.  This one was excellent with very little oak letting the Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre display all their wonderful flavors and aromas.  They make wine very much in the style of the Rhone Valley with the complexity and flavor not being drowned out by jammy fruit.  The bottle did not last long.

Number 2 and a wonderful Syrah and that was a 2000 Madroña Reserve Syrah.  Paul Bush, the owner and wine maker has been making some wonderful wines and this one is of the better Syrahs I have had.  It had a flavor that I look for which is hard for me to describe, but a earthly kind of vegetative flavor that many good Syrahs exhibit.  As I noted earlier, I like a Syrah that is big, complex, with a long finish.  This means you have to be careful about too much oak and you can’t let your grapes hang too long (too jammy, too much sugar/alcohol).  But then I tasted my favorite of the night.

It was a 2006 Sonoma Coast Syrah from Lynmar Estate in the Russian River Valley.   Most have tasted their Pinot and Chardonnay and they are excellent.  But this Syrah was just exquisite.   And to my delight it had that wonderful earthly flavor I so love.  Two in one night!  This Syrah (and the Pinot and Chardonnay) was brought by Hugh Chappelle who is the wine maker there and to my great delight took the time to explained to me how that flavor comes about.  It is a special yeast (hope I got this right) that takes longer to act and is therefore a little more risky as you ferment longer.  I had met Hugh at several gatherings, but had never had a chance to really talk with him.  I strongly recommend that if you are out in the Russian River Valley you make Lynmar Estate a stop.  Hugh is a delight to talk with and his passion for his creation comes through.

Okay, I know.  It is tough duty, but somebody has to do it.  Besides, and trust me on this one, I have paid my dues.  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