On the Contrary

Mountain Grapes - March 3, 2010

Vine: This picture was taken last Wednesday, 3 March.  It tells you two things.  When we say mountain grapes up here, we are not kidding.  This is not some measly 1500’, but, elevation 3000’.  The second thing it tells you is that we do not prune up here until late March for the obvious reasons.  Pruning pushes growth and the buds and early leafing are very susceptible to freeze damage.  So we wait as late as possible when the buds are just starting to push some leaves out. As far as vineyard work right now, I should be spraying out the rows with roundup, but as you can see, it would be futile.  Maybe next week after I get done with a consulting project.  With my bum knee, it will be a challenge this year, but I will get it done soon.  I would also like to do some medium or long pruning.  That is I take my super heavy duty gas hedger and cut the shoots back to about 12 inches.  That allows me to pull most of the shoots off the wires and can start an initial clean up before the grass in the vineyard grows too tall to rake the shoots out.  Then when the pruning crew gets here, they can quickly go down the rows and finish the pruning.  May I will get to that week after next.  Then I start the burning of the debris and two mowings of the vineyard after the grass gets to tall.  But we have been getting plenty of moisture this year so we will so how well laid out plans work out.

Wine: Sadly nothing to report on the wine and food front as I have been buried since my trip to Calistoga (see Vine/Wine Friday) in consulting work helping prepare proposals for aprons and runways in Afghanistan and a floodwall in New Orleans.  So no eating out and only my favorite Syrah (Holly’s Hill East Slope) for dinner.  I did read a couple of excellent articles about wine makers who are moving in the direction of Holly’s Hill and Donkey and Goat, and that is minimal intervention in the wine making process and let the grapes express their terroir.  That would also mean lower alcohol wines that are more complex instead of the fruit bombs that are trendy in Napa Valley these days.  One can only hope.  Well that’s all I have.  Carpe Diem.

Well it was off to Calistoga for a couple of days of R&R (Rest and Recuperation) and also a belated birthday trip.  Candace has stayed up there several times doing stuff for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and enjoyed the ambiance so much that she wanted to share it.  So Wednesday morning after some last minute running around (I had to get my pesticide/herbicide applicators permit) we were off.  For those of you who don’t know where Calistoga is, it is about 24 miles north of Napa on Highway 29.  Calistoga is known for its hot springs so it was a trip to taste some wine, relax and soak in hot mineral water.

This time I took my trusty GPS and I think I finally broke the woman whose voice you hear giving you directions.   “Turn left in 300 feet”.  “Merge right onto Highway 80.”  Things were going fine until I started to take a couple of detours.  “Recomputing, Recomputing, turn left on First Street, recomputing, recomputing, make a U-Turn at the next intersection.”  And so it went, but I notice a little edge in her voice.  “Recomputing (again).”  When I turned off at the outlet mall in Napa because I had forgot my bathing suit, I could have sworn she said, “(Oh lord, not again), recomputing (you moron).”  When I turned into Dean and Deluca just outside St Helena to pick up some sandwiches, wine, cheese, beer, paté, bread, you know, just basics, she was screaming, (“No, No, No you lunatic), recomputing.”  But I think the final straw was just before getting to Calistoga, I turned into Franks Family Winery to taste a nice Cabernet.  “(You are an alcoholic degenerate and a fool and you don’t deserve directions) recomputing.”  And when I finally got into Calistoga and realized that the address I had put in was the wrong Spa it was, “(Just throw me out the window and end this misery), recomputing”.   Talk about anal.  This chic needs to get out more and just go with the flow.

Calistoga is kind of a poorman’s St. Helena.  But you have to love a small town with a main street made up primarily of restaurants and wine stores.  The place we stayed in was the Calistoga Hot Springs Spa.  It was very reasonable, and very comfortable with a queen bed and a small kitchenette.  It had three different mineral pools, a lap pool, a warm pool, and a hot pool.  It also has an amazing gym and yoga studio that only a few of us used.  It is startling to see the number of older European people that live for soaking in the mineral water.  I must say that seeing a guy about 50 pounds overweight in a thong bathing suit was a vision that may stay with me for eternity.  Ukrainian, Russian, Uzbekistani, was spoken everywhere.  Candace and I were the young svelte couple.  Everything is relative.   Went out that evening to a restaurant called Brannan’s.  Food was just okay, waitress was waiting for a better gig.

Day two started with a good workout in the gym, then breakfast at the local mart (Peet’s Coffee and a sausage biscuit).  Then we went exploring Calistoga and St. Helena.  When you move from Calistoga to St. Helena (both beautiful in the Northern Napa Valley) you move from high $500 grand in real estate to the low $3 million for that cute little bungalow.  Location, location, location.  A lot more fixer uppers in Calistoga.  We went to two wineries that day.  The first was Sterling Vineyards just because it has an immense facility up on the top of a high hill overlooking the valley.  You arrive and ride a gondola up to the tasting room and processing facility.  They start you with a nice pinot gris and then you take a self guided walking tour of the facility.  They do 450,000 cases a year so you get some sense of scale.  It was a beautiful facility, and seeing those giant oak casks about the size of a swimming pool (puncheons?), was astounding.  The smell was heavenly as each was full of aging red wine. Finally you get to a tasting room where they sit you like you are in a restaurant and pour wines at your table.  I thought the wines were just okay, and the Mourvedre (that I asked specially for and they accommodated me) was scary.  Great visit, but I took away no wines.  A little too commercial, a little too impersonal.  I am spoiled.

Right next door was Clos Pegase.  We went there because Candace had had a lovely Chardonnay from there the night before.   When we walked in, we were the only ones there.  The tasting room staff was like a breath of fresh air.  The charge was $10 for a flight of whites, and $15 for a flight of reds (the gondola ride and tasting was $20/person at Sterling).  We had such a good time there tasting what turned out to be really good wines and talking wine with the staff that they waved the tasting fee and gave me a growers discount for the wine I bought.  The Sauvignon Blanc, even for me, was exceptional and the Chardonnay was as Candace remembered it. Their Syrah was only okay, with lots of oak and fruit, but the staff had a similar Rhone preference for Syrahs and I will have to send a couple of bottle from up here to them.  By the by, for you Rombauer Chardonnay fans, they sell Rombauer their chardonnay grapes.  They sold a 2006 Estate Cuvee red blend of  Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominating, along with a significant contribution of Cabernet Franc that was wonderful.

Then it was to Dean and Deluca for sandwiches and rosemary olive oil potato chips with a Becks lager, nap, and then another trip through the mineral pools being the young fun couple.  That evening we were meeting my daughter Serena (who is now the V.P. for Coppola Resorts) at a wonderful restaurant in St. Helena called Go Fish (Cindy Pawlcyn).  The restaurant has a sushi bar and traditional fish entrees and is bright and beautiful.  I had oysters on the half shell (Hog Island and Canadian varieties), a Go Fish Caesar salad, and a very large shrimp tempura, crab salad, avocado sushi roll with a whole poached lobster tail on top.  So did everyone else.  The wine and staff were wonderful, knowledgeable, and helpful without being intrusive.  It was a pleasant change from the night before when we asked the waitress about the Meyer lemon with butter, crab fettuccini and all she could come up with was that it was a Meyer lemon and butter sauce with crab on fettuccini.  I highly recommend Go Fish.

So ended a perfect little vacation as we packed up in the morning and headed home, although not without a stop at Dean and Deluca’s to pick up a few more “supplies”.  Carpe Diem.

I just watched Bottle Shock again with a lovely glass of Hill Top Syrah from Holly’s Hill and remembered why I grow grapes.  My knee, injured last fall, is not healing well and I am beginning to wonder if this is going to be what the future holds for me.  I was not looking forward to the tasks in front of me, limping through the vineyard.  Then I remembered why I do this, and you know what?  I don’t care.  There are a couple of lines in this movie that kind of sum it up for me.  The first is from Leonardo Da Vinci, who describe wine as “sunlight mixed with water”.  The second went something like this:  “The vineyard’s best fertilizer is the footsteps of the owner.”

Leaping forward to the here and now, I read an article about Randal Graham from Boony Doon, the guru of Rhones and fun wine making, and he could not have said it better:

“The winemaking I can do in my sleep, but being present in the vineyard, walking, looking, observing, being in tune with its real subtleties. That’s something I don’t have yet, and may never have.”

“I love pruning, it’s my favorite thing in the whole world, apart from crossword puzzles. They are one and two, and I couldn’t even say which is one and which is two,” he adds. “When I planted the first vineyard in Bonny Doon and put up the fences, pounded the fence posts, strung the barbed wire, hoed the whole thing with a hoe, that was amazing.”

“That was the best experience in my life, and I lost it. I don’t have the physical endurance I had 25 years ago to do all those things, but for me that was connecting, that was a great presence for me. I may not be able to duplicate it, but I want to try.”

So what am I trying to say?  The vineyard is a connection for me.  It connects me to nature.  It connects me to my humble ability to shape it.  It connects me to my fellow man whose sweat I depend on to help me bring this thing off.  Most importantly it makes me look at wine as a culmination of all that is alive and wonderful.  When I taste a great wine, I am transported to the hombres in the field, to the wine maker and his decisions in the winery, to the guy/gal in the tasting room who is trying to make you stop and really taste what it is you have in your glass.  It connects me to every step of the process.

What I am trying to say is that when I stand in some foreign territory, intimidated by those around me who have the lingo and sophistication of the lexicon of wine tasting down to a nat’s eye, I know I know.  I know what is to stand in my vineyard and feel connected to each and every plant.  I know every inch of the territory (terroir) they grow on.  I know who needs more sun and who doesn’t.  I know the work that goes into each and every plant because it is usually done by me.  But don’t kid yourself.  Big vineyard or small, someone is out there walking the rows and doing the work, connecting to every aspect of the plant and its growth.  It is not a factory.  It is not a repetitive process.  It is an art form.

I also know that only a very few will have any idea what I am talking about.  But I know they know, and I seek out their company because they have glimpsed what it is to be a part of perfection.  Through the sweat and blood of those that work in this endeavor, something beautiful is brought.  And when it is, I am not awed by those that covet the spotlight with their smooth descriptions and coveting of its success.  What I am in awe of is the dedication and human toil that went into taking terroir, and marrying it with the plant.  I am in awe of the human connection to nature and what, with luck, we have wrought.  It is just sad to me that so many have no depth of appreciation for this connection.  Let Spring begin.  I love new beginnings, limp and all.  Carpe Diem

The End State

In my continuing vacation from politics I will continue my narrative on what it takes to become a grape grower.  I feel in good hands as Frank Rich (After the Massachusetts Massacre)  continued the pressure on the Obama administration to get a spine this Sunday morning.  With mainstream columnists taking up the mantra maybe I can take an extended vacation. Finally!

So on to what it takes to establish a vineyard.  Now you have your piece of property and you know your varietal or varietals, clone or clones, and rootstock.  You should also know your trellis system choice.  This will be based upon your varietal selection and what your area and years of experience tells you what is best for that varietal.  That will impact your construction costs since wire trellis systems (and there are many) are more expensive than simple head training (simple stake). The whole idea of a trellis system is to give the plant the optimal exposure for growing grapes.

There is one more choice you need to make before you start construction and that is your irrigation system.  There are really only two choices, overhead sprinklers, and drip.  This might seem like a no-brainer, but it is more complicated than just picking the most economical system.  Some growers think that sprinklers are better than drip because it gives a larger water pattern and allows better root formation.  They also use overhead water for year round cover crop (grasses between the rows) and frost protection.  The decision about all of this is based upon what you want to accomplish in the field and your budget.  I think sprinklers are grossly wasteful, require expensive water delivery pressure systems, and drip works fine for root development.  I live in California where it rains all the winter and is dry in the summer so I plant an annual cover crop and only have to mow twice a year.  It dies out in the summer and reseeds itself for next fall when the rains come back.

Let the construction begin. Over the last winter is when you were deciding on the varietal, you were also laying out your vineyard.  This means deciding how the rows will run, spacing of the rows, spacing of the plants, designing the zones for watering, and deciding where you will have to terrace in the steep areas.  Once again you need an expert.  Row spacing and clearance at the end of the rows is based upon clearance for your equipment to operate (tractor, forklift, spray equipment, mowing equipment). Don’t kid yourself.  You will at least have a tractor and forklift in the vineyard at harvest. A ton of grapes does weigh a ton.  Spacing of the plants is based upon what has been learned in your area about what is optimal for your varietal in your terroir.  It’s a guess.  Qualitatively what you are looking for is a spacing that stresses the plant to produce quality grapes, but not so close as to weaken the plant through over competition.  But through an advisor or your own wild ass guess, you have a layout plan.

You are going to construct all summer.  First you must clear the property of trees shrubs brush, everything.  In my case that was to clear-cut a forest, use a big Caterpillar to push out the stumps and rough grade the area, ship the logs, and burn the slash.  The last part of this is that once the land is cleared you are going to rip it at least down to 3’.  That means plowing up and turning over 3’ of the topsoil.  Then you will spend endless fun hours moving rocks out of the vineyard or saving them to put in the rows later.

Next is the final grading and contouring, cutting terraces where necessary.  Then a survey crew will come out and layout the rows marking the position of every plant (usually with a plastic straw pushed into the ground).  Once the rows are laid out you can then dig and install your main irrigation piping to supply each row and zone.  Last is to install your deer fence and plant a cover crop to control erosion over the winter.  Then you let the land rest till next year.  In the fall you order your plants because they will be grafted and grown over the winter so they are ready next year.  Having fun yet?  You should have seen the dust clouds.

Okay, year two is when the fun does begin because you will eventually plant real grape plants.  Your cover crop is out of control and you will have to mow and spray out the lines where the plants are to be planted. Now you will install your trellis/stake system. Some growers wait until the plants are in to install their trellis, but I prefer to have everything done so when the plants go in, there are no further disturbances in the vineyard. Once the trellis system is in, you can run all the support wires and string your irrigation lines and install the drips.  Now it is really starting to look like a vineyard, just sans the grape plants.

Finally the great day arrives when the nursery tells you your plants are ready.  This usually happens in early July, when the plants are delivered, inspected by the county, and planted with some fertilizers by a large crew of guys so they can all go in together.  Then you do nothing but water and watch your little bushes grow, until the fall arrives, the plants become dormant, and winter sets in.  By the way this cost between $15,000 to $20,000 and acre.  Are you still there?  Tomorrow, the final step:  Farming big time.

Winter in the Rows

I thought I would take a little vacation from politics for a couple of days since it just gets worse and worse.  The Republicans are totally nihilist, and the Democrats can’t find their spine.  See Bob Herbert Saturday for what is obvious to all of us except them (They Still Don’t Get It). Instead, because I get a lot of hits on my vineyard pages, I thought I would write an extended blog about what it takes to grow grapes, quality grapes.  I will combine all this into a separate page for those who eschew politics, but love wine.

It usually starts with a fantasy.  Picture the tanned, well dressed, handsome man standing next to a beautiful woman, both with wine glass in hand looking lovingly at each other, on a deck overlooking a beautiful vineyard.  Now picture a guy all sweaty, very tired, in very dirty jeans, beer in hand, and wife glaring at him, warning him not to track that dirt into her beautiful home.  You can guess which is the real picture.

Okay, the reality is somewhere in between.  So why grow grapes and what does it takes?  Why I grow grapes is a personal thing and I wrote a whole blog about it (Vine/Wine Friday).  Here, I would like to focus and what it takes.  So if you have decided to be a farmer, here are some tips on the way forward.  Note that I do not make wine (see blog above) and if that is your intent, get a good line of credit or be wealthy. 95% of being successful as a wine maker is marketing, but I will leave that discussion for another day.  I always dreamed of being a gentleman farmer with labor to do as I bid, but the reality of finances says you will do most of the work.  The workers I do use call me “El Patron who works”, but I just like to think of my self as “El Hefe”.  I have an active fantasy life.

So you have decided to grow grapes.  The first thing you have to do is match the varietal to your chosen location.  Probably the biggest mistake small growers make is to fall in love with a varietal and not carefully evaluate if it will grow well on the chosen location.  Pinot does not grow well in hot climates.  Syrah does not like shade or north slopes.  If it is a varietal you are focused on, then you must find a location that suits it.  If you already have a piece of property, you are going to have to evaluate if it is conducive to grape growing and then what varietals.  This involves evaluation of the soil type, and terroir.  My advice is hire a consultant who knows varietals, clones, and rootstock that grows well in your particular micro-climate.  One other minor little consideration one should consider is whether there is a market for what you are growing.  Oh, the details.

Okay, a little sidebar on varietals, clones, and rootstock:  We all know what varietals are, Syrah, Pinot Noir, Grenache, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc.  Note my preference for reds.  Generally they are propagated by cloning, and that is you take a cutting from the varietal and graft it to a rootstock (will get to that in a minute). Technically speaking it is an exact copy of the varietal the cutting was taken from.  But even with this method of propagation there are mutations over time that make some, say pinots, a little different from other pinots.  Growers over time have found which clones grow and produce the best wines for their specific terroir. So that is one choice you have to make.

Finally comes rootstock.  Rarely are grape vines allowed to grow on their own roots because they are susceptible to disease.  Vinus Vinifera, which are the European grapes we love to make wine out of, were almost completely wiped out by Phylloxera, an infestation of the roots.  It was saved by grafting the prized European varietals to American grape roots (Vinus Lambrusca), that had a natural resistance to the bug, but make poor wine (Welch’s grape juice).  As rootstocks proliferated, they are selected based upon how they affect growth, susceptible to other diseases, water needs, grow in your terroir, etc.  So selection of rootstock is another one of those problems that requires talking to someone who is experienced with your type of soil, and the terroir.

Okay, you have your piece of property and you know what to order from the nursery.  The next step is the construction process of the vineyard.  Tomorrow I will write about the construction process, and the growing process.  Then if you still want to grow grapes, you are like me, a nut.  Welcome to my world.

After 5 days of rain, no snow. Welcome to California winters

Well as you can see, the rain has washed away all the snow and the vineyard is now in its winter glory.  Not much to do until March when we prune and begin another year.  I have about 10 weak vines I want to replace, but that will wait till next summer (but need to be ordered now).  So I can focus on healing my knee so I can again work in the vineyard.

My daughter is going to visit a wine family in Napa this weekend and she asked me to prepare a little bio and why I grow grapes after retiring up here so I thought I would share:

Son of a general, Ex-F4 Backseater, B-52 Bombardier, Water Resources Structural Engineer, Navy Public Works Engineer, and Army Corps of Engineers’ Field Engineer, Field Engineering Project Manager, Chief of Construction Project Management Branch, Program Manager for the Total Environmental Restoration Contracts, and Chief of the Environmental Project Management Branch, this is where I have been and you probably know this stuff.  I still make my living organizing other people’s messes.  But when I retired from the Corps of Engineers, I felt like I had not really accomplished anything important.  When you look back at life there are only really two important things, the people you have touched, and did you create anything beautiful (actually one and the same).  Did you make the world just a little better place?

So I was up here on my 23 acres of mountaintop and my good friend Ron Mansfield of Goldbud Farms thought my hillside would be a wonderful site for Rhones.  I had cultivated a taste for quality wine and food.  I loved the beauty and the artistry of the creations, and I loved what good food and wine can do to people to bring them closer together, sharing this wonderful gift.  Babette’s Feast comes to mind.  I also found that I really liked these people who try to create wonderful wine and food.  Their passion is contagious.

So I thought this was a wonderful opportunity to just maybe create something beautiful.  I was no fool and although I have a fairly good palate, learning how to make great wine for me would be a 20 or 30 year adventure that I neither had the time or the money to embark on.  But the other side of the coin, providing grapes that are distinctive in their quality was something I thought I might be able to do.  I certainly had the setting for it.   Without the profit motive driving my train, I could plan and develop my little 3 acres to produce quality.  There would be good years and not so good years because I am growing right at the limit of where these grapes will flourish.  Quality in my mind is not chasing the latest trend in wine making, but producing a wine that starts big, but doesn’t overwhelm, has an interesting understated complexity, and a finish that stays with you and does not let you down.  Most important to me is complexity and subtleness.  This is a convergence of quality grapes, a good wine maker, and the style of wine making that fit your grapes.  I thought for sure I could be part of that equation.

Why did I think that not knowing anything about growing grapes?  First and foremost I cared and hard work does not scare me.  It invigorates me.  I am intellectually voracious and could learn the basics quickly.  Second I was working under the tutelage of Ron who has the passion and the gift, not to mention the education and experience.  If you do not get a passion for wonderful fruits and grapes, not to mention wine and the food that goes with hanging around Ron, then you really are a lost soul.

What I have learned is nothing is a recipe.  You have to learn your own terroir and adjust to what your grapes tell you about the soil, the weather, the moisture, and any unpleasant visitors in the vineyard.  I am just getting to know my grapes and my terroir after 5 harvests now.  In another 10 years we might be closer friends and have more intimate knowledge of each other. Like a marriage, it matures slowly.

But I do know this:  A fine wine is the result of so many people working with nature.  When I watch someone enjoy a great wine, are they thinking about just the taste, or is it the terroir, the vintage year, or the wine maker, or the grower, or the most under appreciated of this equation, los hombres who work so hard in the vineyard.  I know what a good wine is. I know what it takes to make a good wine.  I have been part of a couple.  I know it is the magical confluence of all those factors I just listed.  And it is the most meaningful thing I have ever been apart of, to create a momentary glimpse of perfection and beauty in this world.  That is why I do it.  Maybe someday I might even be good at it.

Lightner Vineyards is a small, 3-acre vineyard near Camino (Apple Hill) California where I grow Syrah, Mourvedre, Grenache, Viognier, and Counoise and produce about 5 tons of grapes each year. It is at an elevation of 3000′ taking advantage of a longer growing season and cooler nights.  I sell my grapes to Holly’s Hill and Donkey and Goat, both producers of Rhones in a style that I think is approaching exceptional.  Long live Syrah.

As you can see, there is not a lot going in the vineyard this week which is good with my bum knee.  You know, every now and then I get some promo stuff from other wineries and they talk about their high altitude grapes.  HELLO OUT THERE!  These are high altitude grapes and this is what winter in the Sierra looks like.  So don’t give me some puny 1700′.  This is winter at 3000′.  The grapes will be fine and this is what is part of that very distinctive and quality taste you get from grapes grown up here.  Merry Christmas.

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: 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