Vine/Wine Friday
Vine: We finished up the leaf cover thinning (now two weeks ago) and by the picture you can see how the leaf cover on the morning (cool) side of the vine exposes the grapes to sun for maturing, but in the hot of the afternoon and late evening they get protection from full leaf cover on the afternoon side. Back to a little wine making/grape growing 101.
There are three things you look at as a grower/vintner to judge the quality of your fruit: sugar, acid, tannins (flavoids also). As the grapes ripen the sugar levels increase and the acid levels decrease (making the grapes tasty little morsels for birds). Different styles of wine making look for different ratio balances, but as sugar increases sooner or later you have to harvest. This is directly related to temperature and sunlight. But the ripening of the tannins and flavoids is more a function of hang time. In a perfect world, they all come together at one time and you harvest. But if you experience too hot a weather pattern, the sugar/acid balance will be reached before there is full development of your flavoids and tannin ripening. When it is too cold, the sugar never gets there and neither do the tannins and you have to add sugar (to get optimum alcohol levels for aging) and find away to reduce the acid.
Side note: The vintner is looking for a certain acid level measured in PH and TA that enhances the fermentation by increasing the extraction of flavor and preventing bad things to grow in the must. They are also looking for a grape with tons of complex flavors and tannins that are ripe and not harsh. He/She can adjust acid and sugar (not allowed to add in California, but usually not necessary, but can reduce by adding water), but the flavors are what they are.
The whole idea of growing up here is that we get a longer growing season so it slows down the sugar rise, acid fall, and allows hang time to develop the tannins. Now hanging fruit too long will get the fruit too sweet (high alcohol content), the acid to low, and the wine with an overly jammy flavor that overwhelms the complexity and subtleness of a good wine. The ideal is to get them all in the proper balance through nature because there is only so much you can do in the winery. So all of this leaf cover management and fruit dropping is a way to try to adjust to what nature delivered this year to get the best crop. We will see in about 4 weeks if I got it right.
Wine: Oh, I have so much to report. We were off to the Russian River Valley to enjoy great pinot with two other couples (Ron Mansfield and his wife and Mike Ward and his wife). Ron is a Syrah lover and my vineyard advisor, but he was willing to try pinots if we promised him roast leg of lamb. Carolyn tolerates some wine and ends up our designated driver when we tasted one too many. Mike and his lovely bride have been oenophiles and their opinions are highly informative although Fran can be a little competitive playing Mexican Train. Actually Carolyn is more competitive than Fran as indicated by her response to the advice, these games are suppose to be fun: “Winning is fun. Losing sucks.” Maybe not an exact quote.
So I will give you a quick rundown. Friday we all met in Windsor about 4:30. Candace and I started out early that morning and drove through Napa and up 29 to Calistoga, enjoying some of the beautiful wineries on that route. If you are going to stop pick only 3 or 4 and just enjoy the beauty of these great wineries. We stopped at Dean and Deluca just outside Calistoga for lunch. Then we cut across the mountains to Santa Rosa, just below Windsor. Friday night we went to a little restaurant in Healdsburg call Zin. We had already broken open a bottle of Siduri Pinot we bought at Big Johns (in Healdsburg which is a semi undiscovered great grocery/deli/wine store) and it was delish. Zin was delightful and had a very good wine list at very reasonable pricess. There was a very reasonable Hook and Ladder Pinot that went well with everything. You can peruse the menu for yourself. Staff, presentation, and quality were excellent.
Saturday we had a plan. Always have a plan. It doesn’t mean you can’t deviate, but it gives structure to your day and you can pick some of the better pinot vintners. Plug the addresses into your GPS and you are off. Our first stop was Hop Kiln because Ron’s son is the wine maker there. Chuck gave us a great tour of this beautiful and old winery, along with answering some tough questions on both vineyard philosophy and wine making techniques. Then we went to Rochioli and tasted a delightful Pinot (estate 2007) and a Sauvignon Blanc. The lovely lady in the tasting room was a little stand offish at first, but when I discovered her love of cooking and food (and wine to go with it), Katy bar the door. She described a recipe for wrapping shrimp in angel hair pasta and frying it that required a napkin to wipe the drool off my face. I was about to ask the woman to marry me when my wife dragged me out of there.
Next up was Hook and Ladder to try their wines. I love a winery that gives discounts to firemen, not to mention making good pinots. The retired fireman who owns Hook and Ladder is the guy who established and developed De Loach before he sold it to a French company (Cecil De Loach). The tasting room was fun and their staff was extremely helpful. Then we stopped for lunch, somewhere, I am not sure where, and I had a beer and a salad to refresh my palate. Then it was on to Martinnelli and had a delightful tasting with a pourer who knew terroir. So you could actually taste the difference in the different soil types. I bought a 2007 Zio Tony Ranch Pinot.
Finally it was off to Papapierto Perry as a last stop. This is one of my wife’s favorites and of course her palate never fails. When we entered the tasting room it was packed so I was waiting patiently for a taste when one of the folks there recognized Ron and waved us in the back, as he said, “away from the bar scene for some real tasting”. He was true to his word and we had just a wonderful experience there. By the by, there were some young things there that were being given a private tasting by some of the staff and they were quite exuberant. Somebody was going to get lucky that night. Those girls will never know that the real pleasure was some of wines they got to taste. Oh well, youth is wasted on the young.
Then it was back to the condo in Windsor to grill a leg of lamb (my job), fresh tomatoes, mashed garlic potatoes and I will be damned if they didn’t drink my other bottle of Siduri (would have visited the winery, but there isn’t one, only a processing area and by appointment only). Desert was something that I don’t remember. Sunday on the return trip we traveled HW12 out of Santa Rosa, stopping in Sonoma for lunch. It was a great trip and as Mike Ward always toasts: It is a great day to be alive.
Carpe Diem