Winery & Tasting Room
The last of the 2008 Special Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Magnums were spoken for this weekend. The magnums usually go very fast and this time was no exception. Futures ordering will continue until July 15th. We’ll send out one reminder after this coming weekend. The allocation amounts are set up so that we will not run out of anything else but magnums are so limited that we can’t allocate them to everyone and they have to me first come first serve.
I thought I was late getting in a barrel order this year, but when I checked my records it was the exact same time last year that we put in an order. Barrels are a huge expense for us. We only use French Oak and I select very high end barrels. The cost, depending on the exchange rate of the Euro, is usually about $1100 a barrel.
Our primary barrel supplier is a French company called Sequin Moreau. We also use Claude Gillet for our Chardonnay and Ermitage for Syrah, but most of our new barrels are Sequin Moreau and are used on our Cabernets. Barrels come in two basic formats: 225 liter ‘Bordeaux’ or 228 liter ‘Burgundy, which are slightly fatter and shorter. For Cabernets I use the Bordeaux barrels. Next you have to decide on thickness. They either come in 21mm called ‘Chateau Ferre’ or 27mm called ‘Export’. I always select Chateau Ferre. I’ve just heard that it is superior and it comes in a wider selection of barrel types.
The next choice is barrel grade. Sequin Moreau offers 5 different grades of barrel. The basic is called ‘Selection Terrior’. That’s really just a brand name. The grades represent an increase in the age of the wood and the tightness of the grain. The older and tighter the wood, the more desirable as the impact of the wood becomes more subtle. In the past I’ve tried a selection of the top 4 grades from Sequin Moreau. The one I’ve found I like best is their second highest grade called Selection Vendanges Tardives or SVT for short. The SVT seems to really bring out the aromatics of the wine and add nice spice and gentle tannin development. The barrel below ‘Selection Cabernet’ is nice, but just not as fine as the SVT. There is also a Selection FX which we tried but I thought it was too drying for our wines with too much sweetness.
So this time I ordered all SVT barrels. They seem to be best for our wine. The next big choice is ‘Toast Level’. This is the amount of fire toasting that the barrels get and probably has the largest impact on the finished wine. There are five levels of toast and the option to toast the heads of the barrels. The toasts are Light, Medium, Medium Long, Medium Plus, and Heavy. You can then select with each option to have the heads of the barrel toasted too.
This is probably the thing we’ve learned the most about in six vintages. Certain vineyards and certain wines respond better to certain levels of toasting. At a basic level the lighter the toast the more vanilla and simple flavors you get and the more tannin and structure is added to the wine. The heavier the toast the more complex spicy, smokey flavors and the less tannin extract you get. For most of our wines, we have more than enough tannin in the grapes and don’t need to add any with the barrel treatment. For those vineyards we use heavier toasts and even toast the heads.
At first I was reluctant to use Heavy toast or Toasted Heads. I’ve learned though that in a very tannic site like Chaine d’Or the wine benefits from the complex flavors and it’s best to avoid adding any tannin. For Chaine d’Or we’ll use a combo of Medium Plus and Heavy toast barrels with Toasted Heads. For a wine like our Haut Tubee that has lots of Zinfandel and warm site Syrah we’ll use a lighter toast to add some structure to the wine.
We ordered a bunch of different toast levels and combos. That will give us some flexibility at harvest time.
Our 2011 Summer Futures email just went out. There are two new wines in this release. First up will be a new Syrah from the Split Rail vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains. This is a site we started working with in 2009 and it will replace the Eaglepoint Ranch bottling for us starting with this release.
We are also doing a special release of Cabernet Sauvignon from the Harvest Moon vineyard. We’ve used the Harvest Moon vineyard since 2006 as part of our Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet Sauvignon. In 2008 we selected three special barrels that we bottled as a ‘Special Reserve’. Usually we think that the Harvest Moon wine benefits from the addition of other vineyards. For instance the Chaine d’Or vineyard brings structure and acidity. The Elandrich vineyard brought texture and red fruit. In 2008 though the vineyard was complete on its own. We don’t think this will be the only ‘Special Reserve’ we ever do, but it will be pretty rare. There were none in 2005,2006,2007,2009 or 2010.
We are also releasing the 2009 Haut Tubee. The general release will be this September and we will have complete details on the wines leading up to that.
You may have noticed that there was no Part 3 to the Memorial Day Vineyard Tours. We never got to the Harrison vineyard and Chaine d’Or. I was sick. It came on Sunday and by Monday I spent most of the day in bed. Tuesday I missed the day job and only worked a 1/2 day on Wednesday.
We had travel planned for the weekend to New Mexico to visit a friend of Stefania’s. Traveling with a cold seemed like a bad idea so I wanted to get as much rest as I could to see if I felt well enough to go. I also thought I might have something else going on with me as three colds is very very unusual, and I just had the last one a month ago. It seemed like I might have something besides a cold.
I scheduled a rare trip to the doctor to see if maybe some antibiotics were needed. It seemed to me that I had something a little more serious. The doctor agreed and wrote out a prescription for me. How rare are these trips to the doctor and prescriptions? Well this is a brand new doctor for me so he asked: “Where do you usually get your prescriptions from?” My answer: That’s a good questions. I’d say it’s been over 10 years since I’ve had a prescription so just about anywhere would qualify as ‘the usual place'”.
The antibiotics really seemed to help. My lungs are finally feeling really clear for the first time since January when I first picked this bug up in Seattle. The trip to New Mexico went off well. There was smoke in the air from a huge fire in Arizona but the skies were still great.
Stefania and I each bought a little art in Santa Fe and had some good meals while Stefania caught up with some old high school friends. I also picked up some Pinon nuts for my Dad for Father’s Day. I have a little more travel later this week and then we’ll finally finish the vineyard tours on Saturday.