On the Contrary

Chateau Lightner from the Upper Vineyard

Vine:   Fall is rapidly approaching and the vineyard is a bit ahead of schedule.  Everything is now a deep purple and I am trying to adjust my irrigation schedule so that it is not too close to harvest.  I measured the brix (measure of sugar in grapes) in the Syrah and it ranged from 22°-24° and we harvest around 26°-28°.  So it is not long off.  If the acid gets low it can be added during fermentation, but most wine makers prefer to intercede as little as possible.

9-5-2008 September in the Sun

A little primer on “ripe” grapes:  When I first started this adventure in the vineyard, I would taste the grapes and as they got nice and sweet I would jump up and down shouting “time to harvest, time to harvest”.  More experienced hands like the wine makers I work with would come up and taste and look at me like I had a screw loose.  You are looking for really three things:  a balance of sugar and acid at about the right levels, and ripe tannins.  Sugar and acid you can taste, but most growers use a laboratory to get an exact measurement.  For sugar I use a temperature-compensating refractometer in the field where you put a drop or two of grape juice on the view plate and you can read the sugar brix directly.

Well Balanced Mourvedre Slowly Ripening

It just gives you a ballpark figure so you can start paying attention when you get in the ball park.  The tannins are tasted in the pips (seeds) and the skins.  Mature tannins have lost that bitterness and the seeds are nutty and crunch like a nut in your mouth.  That is the only test for them in our present state of scientific advance, but as most growers and wine makers will tell you, your mouth is a very sensitive instrument.

The pips in the Syrah have definitely started to ripen, losing that green color and have a nice nutty flavor to them.  The skins are definitely not bitter.  So on the Syrah front I would say two weeks.  I just finished watering my lower vineyard Syrah and just started my upper vineyard Syrah so that they will have a chance to dry out a little before we harvest.  Grapes soak up water right after irrigation and you don’t want to dilute the flavoids.  Viognier is in the same shape and as true of all Rhone Syrahs, will be harvested and processed with the Syrah.

On the other hand the Grenache has a way to go being at about 20°-21°  brix along with the Mourvedre.  The pips are quite green and the skins are quite bitter yet.  I would say early to mid October for their harvest, once again all depending on weather.

Grenache with Heavy Foilage

Right now we are experiencing mid to upper 90’s each day which is going to ripen them faster than I would like.  Tannins ripen slower than the rest of the grape so if you can slow down the sugar production by cool weather until the tannins catch up, you get a superior grape.  Problem is I have not figured out how to control Mother Nature and we just have to accept what is served up.

Wine:   For our anniversary we took some good friends to the Wine Konnection for dinner.  This is really a fun place for tasting wine and good food.  Here is my recommendation:  In a party of four, everyone buy a flight of tasters, Rhones, blends, Pinot Noirs, Cabs, whatever.  Then pass them around and comment on them.  You would be amazed how much fun that is, how much you will learn from your friends on what they are tasting, and will force you to try wines you may not have ordered to discover something new.  Here are the entrees we had:
Prawn risotto – $15.00
ARUGULA, HEIRLOOM TOMATOES, CORN, VELLA DRY JACK
(SANTA MARGHERITA; PINOT GRIGIO, VALDADIGE,
ITALY ‘07 $8)
Vanilla braised beef short ribs – $18.00
MAC & CHEESE, GREEN BEANS
(LA PLAYA; CARMENERE, COLCHAUGA VALLY, CHILE ‘05 $7)
Kobe beef sirloin steak – $15.00
HEIRLOOM TOMATOES, MASHED POTATOES
(BEAULIEU VINEYARDS; TAPESTRY, NAPA, CALIFORNIA ‘04 $13)
Sautéed halibut – $16.00
CORN SUCCOTASH, ARUGULA, COCONUT& PASSIONFRUIT MOUSSE
(PERRIER JOUET “GRAND BRUT” CHAMPAGNE, FRANCE NV $14)

Notice the very reasonable cost.  We spent our money on good wine and had a bottle of 2006 Siduri Keefer Ranch Vineyard Pinot Noir.  It was delightful.

There was really a good article in last weeks Chronicle (Reconsidering Sulfites) about using sulfites in wine.  Everyone these days is trending to natural wines and using less pesticides/fertilizers in the vineyard.  This is a good thing to make your vineyard a sustainable ecosystem, but I think extremism in anything is misplaced.  Sulfites are used in wine primarily to fight off bad microbes and prevent bad flavors or spoiled wine.  Most vintners use less than 100 ppm which is all that is required for a organic wine and most are around 30 ppm when bottled.  It is interesting reading and I admire those who are trying new things, but consistency and reliability in your wine may be more important that being trendy.  And most important of all, other than in the winery during fermentation and processing, I have never detected sulfites in the wines I drink.  At these levels, neither will anybody else.  It is a trade off for those who want to be pure.  I personally will let my palate do the informing and so far, sulfites are not an issue.  Carpe Diem.

Candace's Flowers at 'Chateau Lightner'

Vine:   Well finally I have gone through the last two rows in the upper block of Syrah and thinned the excess shoots and dropped quite a bit of fruit.  With some time off from consulting and a laser enhancement on my right eye last week left me with some free time to get things tidied up in the Vineyard.

Roses at the End of Each Row

I also cut some shoots that were over running the roses and pruned them for another round of flowering.  What does this have to do with growing great grapes?  Nothing, it is just peace of mind.  There is really very little to do now but let them ripen and wait for harvest.  It will be about 100° today and then we will hit a cooling off period where the highs will be in the low 80s.  This is the time of year when you want things to slow down so that the sugar can increase at a rate that allows the tannins to mature also without too much loss of acid.  It is all up to Mother Nature now.

Speaking of Mother Nature, the hoards of birds are now gathering to feast upon my hard work.  I put out my Kite-Birds this week in hopes that they will scare off the free loaders. I put four in the lower vineyard and one in the upper vineyard, strategically placed near the edge of the vineyard where the birds like to sit in the trees before making their foray into the smorgy board.

One of My Fearless Kite-Birds Protecting the Vineyard

Kite-Birds are a kites shaped like Ospreys tethered to a 20′ pole by about a 10’ string.  When the wind blows, which is all afternoon up here, they fly much like the real thing, hovering over a possible meal on the ground.  I have tried just about everything to keep the birds out of my vineyard except load noises and netting.  I can’t imagine using netting on my steep slopes and have this image of myself tangled up in the netting and waiting for someone to come free me.  If the Kite-Birds are not effective I may be forced to resort to loud noises although I don’t think that will work since the birds seem to be oblivious to my loud shouting of obscenities when they are feeding.

Anyway, if things continue to progress as they have been, I would expect to harvest the Syrah about mid-September.  The Mourvedre and Grenache will probably not happen until October.  I will start measuring (other than taste) sugars next week and start tracking the data next week.

Wine:  Wineries have been busy bottling what they put up last year so that they will have capacity for the harvest that is going to start shortly.  For those of you that have visions of owning a winery and sipping your wine while overlooking your vineyards, I would like to remind you of the hard work and constant attention that goes on every day.  It is a 24/7 job and not quite as romantic as one would think.  You have to love the life and the work.  It is also very expensive and you must do most of your own marketing.  As my friend Tom Cooper, owner of Holly’s Hill, once said, “If you want to be a millionaire in this business, start with about five million.”  On the plus side, if you make fine wine’s like they do, eventually it starts to come together.

Last week Candace and I ate out several times because we were having our wood cabinets refinished.  Up here where I live, eating out is always an adventure.  My general rule of thumb is that I want something I can’t cook at home or if I could cook it at home, I couldn’t do it that well.  So one evening we went to the Redbud Café down in Cameron Park.  It has a good reputation and one of my friends raves about it.  I found it disappointing.  My friend is known there and I think she gets special attention that sets the tone for the meal.  Now I am a snob about service.  When we walked in the staff was very friendly, but there is something about “Hi, how are you guys tonight?”  that sets my teeth on edge.  I don’t like to be called “guys”.  The menu was adequate with some good choices but what I had was only okay and I could have fixed it better at home.  I think if you stuck with the simple stuff like a burger with frites you would have been happy.  What really got me going was that I had ordered a beer before dinner to quench my thirst (the high point of the meal) and when my meal arrived, I asked for the wine list.  Then our waitress got busy chatting up another couple and I was half way through my meal before she came back to enquire on what I might like to order.  Candace had ordered a mushroom dish and a green salad.  It turned out that the mushroom dish came with fresh greens.  Shouldn’t the waitress have known that and advised her of that when she ordered her salad?  That is fairly common up here where the wait staff is a little too folksy, too friendly, not that knowledgeable about the menu, and service suffers as a result.  Anyway Redbud is off my list.

Saturday we were sitting around outside because everything in the house was tarped over, so we decided to go down to El Dorado Hills Town Center and maybe catch a movie and a light dinner.  Well, after perusing the movie list, we decided on just getting dinner.  My first choice was a Grill (I don’t remember the name), but the wait was about 45 minutes so we went to a little place called the Wine Konnection.  We secured seating outside overlooking the little lake and fountain and proceeded to have just a wonderful dining experience. The waiter was extremely knowledgeable about the wine list and I had a flight of Pinots and Candace had a flight of Red Blends which of course we shared.  We split a wonderful cheese and sliced heirloom tomato salad.  Candace had a perfectly prepared Kobe steak and I had a vanilla braised beef short ribs.  Both entrees were about $15, were perfectly prepared, and just delicious.  I ordered a bottle on Novy Syrah and it was just perfect.  So I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.  If you want a folksy experience where everybody knows your name (but they aren’t paying attention to the details) Redbud is your choice.  If you want exquisitely prepared food, where the waiter is spot on his knowleged of the menu and the wine list, the Wine Konnection is your choice.  I will be returning there.  Carpe Diem.